Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mef‘ūlü / mefā‘īlü / mefā‘īlü / fe‘ūlün

Rengīn kemeriñ şöyle miyānıña ṭolaşmış
Bir ḳıl üzere ṣanki zer ü sīm ṣuvaşmış
Öykünmüş o bālā-reviş-i ḳaddiñe servi
Bu işde o boyı uzun aḥmaḳ ḳatı şaşmış
Ḳaçdıḳda dil ü cān-ı şitābende-i ‘uşşāḳ
Perçemleri fesden çıḳup ardından ulaşmış
Destiñde ḥınā pāyda sürḫīn ḳalevre
Bugün yine ẓālim el ayaḳ ḳana bulaşmış
Ser-pençe-i çeşminde helākiñ müte‘ayyen
Kebk-i dile Vāżıḥ āh o şeh-bāz ulaşmış

In English

1. Your coloured belt is wound so about your waist that it seems gold and silver have been plastered on a single hair.

2. The cypress has tried to imitate your tall, swaying stature; that tall fool has got thoroughly confused in this business.

3. When the hurrying hearts and souls of the lovers ran away, your forelocks slipped out from under the fez and caught up with them.

4. Henna on his hand, red kalevre on his foot; today again the tyrant's hands and feet are smeared with blood.

5. Your ruin is certain in the talons of his eye; O Vâzıh, alas, that falcon has caught up with the partridge of the heart.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The ghazal has five couplets and is written in the hezec pattern "mef‘ūlü mefā‘īlü mefā‘īlü fe‘ūlün". The redif (refrain word) is the suffix "-mış"; the rhyme is the "-aş" of "ṭolaş, ṣuvaş, şaş, ulaş, bulaş". In the third and fifth couplets the word "ulaşmış" is used twice in rhyme position; repeating the same word as rhyme was counted a fault in classical poetry, and this may be considered together with the fact that the manuscript is an autograph that has the character of a draft. The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet. To whom it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The poem is a descriptive ghazal that goes through the beloved's clothes and ornaments one by one. In the first couplet the waist is so slender that the belt looks like gold and silver wound round a hair; the likeness between a slim waist and a hair is a familiar theme of divan poetry. In the second couplet the cypress is mocked for imitating the beloved's stature and is called "that tall fool". This expression is a clear example of the tendency Babaarslan notes in Vâzıh to carry popular language and everyday speech into poetry. In the third couplet a chase is staged between the fleeing hearts of the lovers and the forelocks that run after them; the forelock spilling from under the fez adds a detail of the dress of the period to the poem.

The fourth couplet is the centre of the ghazal. The henna on the beloved's hand and the red ornament on his foot are joined to the idiom "to have one's hands and feet smeared with blood"; the adornment thus becomes the trace of a murder, and the beloved appears as a tyrant who kills lovers. We could not determine whether "ḳalevre" means a red dye applied to the foot or an ornament; we have left the word as the edition reads it. In the last couplet the eye is compared to a bird of prey, the falcon, and the lover's heart to a partridge. "Ser-pençe" means both talon and strength and completes the congruence of images (tenasüp) between falcon and partridge. Moving from description to a hunting scene, the ghazal announces the lover's inevitable end.

Bibliography

Online sources