Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Gāh kāse-i leb-rīz-i muṣaffāsını ṭutsam
Gāh nuḳle-i bādām-ı murabbāsını ṭutsam
Düşnām idivirdikçe baña neş’e-i meyle
Öpsem dehenin zülf-i muṭarrāsını ṭutsam
Yār vesme çekerken ḳaşına kendi eliyle
Bu ben daḫi mir’āt-ı mücellāsını ṭutsam
Ser-pençede ḫūn-ı cigeriñ var diyorlar
Baḳsam ben aña dest-i muḥannāsını ṭutsam
Vāżıḥ ben o Fāris Begi görsem de bugünde
Gör şi‘ri diyü ceyb-i mu‘allāsını ṭutsam

In English

1. Sometimes I would hold her brimming cup of strained wine, sometimes hold her sweetmeat of candied almonds.

2. Whenever she cursed me in the merriment of wine, I would kiss her mouth and hold her fragrant locks.

3. While the beloved draws dye on her eyebrows with her own hand, I would hold her polished mirror.

4. They say "there is the blood of your heart on her claws"; I would look at her and hold her hennaed hand.

5. O Vâzıh, if I could see that Fâris Beg today, I would take him by his lofty collar, saying "look at the poem".

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 "-sını ṭutsam" (I would hold her ...); the rhyme is the "-ā" of "muṣaffā, murabbā, muṭarrā, mücellā, muḥannā, mu‘allā". All the rhyme words are Arabic passive participles beginning with "mu-" or "mü-". Every couplet ends in the optative "ṭutsam" (if only I could hold). The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal is built on the wishes of a lover who dreams of being with the beloved. In every couplet the lover wants to hold something belonging to the beloved: her cup, her sweetmeat, her locks, her mirror, her hand. In the first couplet "nuḳl" is the relish eaten with wine at gatherings and "murabbā" is preserve; the almond is also a common image for the eye in divan poetry. The second couplet shows the playful side of the ghazal: the beloved curses the lover when drunk, and the lover counts the cursing as a chance for a kiss. In the third couplet "vesme" is the dye used to darken the eyebrows; while the beloved draws dye on her brows with her own hand, the lover wishes to hold the mirror for her. This scene is a fine example of the details of everyday life that Babaarslan sees in Vâzıh's poetry.

In the fourth couplet the hennaed hand is seen as a claw stained with the blood of the lover's heart; people say there is blood on the beloved's hand, and the lover wants to hold that hand on the pretext of their words. The old likeness between henna and blood thus becomes an opportunity to draw near the beloved. In the last couplet the ghazal suddenly turns to a particular person. The poet wishes that if he saw Fâris Beg he could take him by the collar, saying "look at the poem". "Taking someone by the collar" can mean both calling him to account and insistently showing him something; the couplet can be read in two ways: the poet wants either to show Fâris Beg his own poem or to call him to account over a poem of his.

Historical Context

The ghazal does not explain who Fâris Beg was, and Babaarslan gives no information on this point. In the Dîvânçe, however, there is another poem in which the same name occurs. Among the musammats there is a tahmis entitled "Taḫmīs-i Vāżıḥ be-Ġazel-i Şehīd Miḳdād Paşa-zāde Şehīd Ḥasan Beg"; in this poem Vâzıh expanded into five-line stanzas a ghazal by Hasan Beg, son of Mikdâd Pasha. In a tahmis the last two lines of every stanza come from the original ghazal, and the pen-name couplet of the original ghazal normally falls in the last stanza. In the line "Alınca hāle-i āgūşa ol māhı bu şeb Fāris" of this last stanza, the word "Fāris" stands exactly where the pen name would be.

From this one may think that Hasan Beg used the pen name "Fâris" and that the Fâris Beg of the ghazal may be him. The title's calling Hasan Beg a "martyr" (şehîd) also fits the longing with which the poet says "if I could see him today". This is, however, our own inference: the word "Fāris" also means "horseman, rider", and Hasan Beg's pen name could not be confirmed from another source. For the poet's life and his circle in Amasya see Kara Müftîzâde Mustafa Vâzıh.

Bibliography

Academic studies

Online sources