Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mefā‘īlün / mefā‘īlün / mefā‘īlün / mefā‘īlün

Silāḥ-ı āteş-efşānın yine ṭaḳmış ṭaḳışdırmış
Görüñ ol şūḫ-ı bī-pervā güzel yaḳmış yaḳışdırmış
Dimiş sīne budur ol şeh-levend-i nāz-ı ḫancer-keş
Birini ‘āşıḳıñ yapmış tamām çaḳmış çaḳışdırmış
Götürmüşler nigārı ḫāneye ser-mest iki aġyār
Biri ḳoltuġına girmiş biri ḳaḳmış ḳaḳışdırmış
Girüp düzd-i nigāhı ḫāne-i ḳalb-i perīşāna
Pelās-ı cānı ancaḳ bulmuş ol baḳmış baḳışdırmış
Ẓuhūr itdi hemānā ḫānem içre nīm-şeb Vāżıḥ
Silāḥ-ı āteş-efşānın yine ṭaḳmış ṭaḳışdırmış

In English

1. Once again he has strapped on and decked out his fire-spitting weapons; look at that fearless coquette, how finely he has fired up and dressed up.

2. That proud, dagger-drawing prince of rakes said "Here is the breast"; he has finished off one of the lovers, driven the blade right in, struck and struck again.

3. Two rivals have taken the beloved home, drunk; one has taken his arm, the other has poked and prodded him.

4. The thief of his glance broke into the house of the ruined heart and found only the soul's old sackcloth; he looked and looked about.

5. O Vâzıh, at midnight he suddenly appeared inside my house; once again he has strapped on and decked out his fire-spitting weapons.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The ghazal has five couplets and is written in the hezec pattern "mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün". At the end of every line two forms of the same verb stand side by side: "ṭaḳmış ṭaḳışdırmış, yaḳmış yaḳışdırmış, çaḳmış çaḳışdırmış, ḳaḳmış ḳaḳışdırmış, baḳmış baḳışdırmış". The rhyme rests on the sound "-aḳ" and the redif (refrain word) on the pattern "-mış ... -ışdırmış". The first line of the opening couplet is repeated word for word as the second line of the last couplet; the poem closes with the words it began with. According to Babaarslan's note, in this last line the manuscript first had "güzel", which was then struck through and replaced by "yine"; the poet must have corrected the word to make the repetition match the opening line exactly. This interpretation is our own inference. To whom it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The poem is one of the liveliest examples of the localising (mahallîleşme) tendency Babaarslan sees in Vâzıh. Reduplicated phrases of the type "takmış takıştırmış" come straight from spoken Turkish and give the ghazal the pace of a story told in a coffeehouse. The beloved here is a "şeh-levend", a prince of rakes who carries firearms at the waist and draws a dagger; the abstract beauty of divan poetry has been replaced by a swaggering young man of the streets. In the first couplet the verb "yakmak" suggests both the fire of the firearm and the burning of lovers, while "yakıştırmak" means dressing up and looking becoming.

The third couplet is a night scene: two rivals take the drunken beloved home, one takes his arm and the other pokes him. In the fourth couplet the glances are compared to a thief who breaks into a house; but there is nothing to steal in the house of the ruined heart, and the thief finds only the soul's old sackcloth. This small joke tells of the lover's poverty and exhaustion in a comic rather than a mournful tone. The phrase "birini āşıḳıñ yapmış tamām" in the second couplet is not entirely clear; in the translation we have followed the sense that the dagger finished off one of the lovers. In the last couplet the beloved appears at midnight in the poet's house, and the ghazal returns, armed as before, to the picture of the opening couplet.

Bibliography

Online sources