Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: fe‘ilātün / fe‘ilātün / fe‘ilātün / fe‘ilün

Gūyiyā beñleriñ üstünde ḳaşıñ ay yüz māh
Sūre-i ve’n-nec(i)m üzre yazılan bismillāh
Ruḫ-ı pür-zülfüñe baḳsam bu gözüm ṣayrulanur
Göze elbette żarardır gice mir’āta nigāh
Kūy-ı dil-dārdan aġyārını men‘ itse n’ola
Māni‘-i cennet olur kişiye elbette günāh
Derd-i ebrūsı ile ḳāmet-i mevzūnı ġamı
Ṭāḳat-i ‘āşıḳı ṭāḳ eyledi ḳaddini kūtāh
Tükedince içelim bāde-i ḥamrāyı bugün
Vāżıḥā ġam yime yarına kerīmdir Allāh

In English

1. O moon-faced one, your eyebrow above your beauty spots is like the basmala written above the surah of the Star.

2. If I look at your face framed with locks, this eye of mine is dazzled and grows sick; looking into a mirror at night is surely harmful to the eye.

3. What wonder if the beloved bars the rivals from his street; what keeps a person from paradise is surely sin.

4. Grief for his eyebrow and sorrow for his shapely stature have exhausted the lover's strength and bent and shortened his stature.

5. O Vâzıh, let us drink the red wine today until it is gone; do not grieve, God is generous for tomorrow.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The ghazal has five couplets and is written in the remel pattern "fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilün". There is no redif (refrain word); the rhyme is the "-āh" of "māh, bismillāh, nigāh, günāh, kūtāh, Allāh". The fact that the rhyme begins with "bismillāh" and ends with "Allāh" gives the impression that the ghazal opens and closes within a religious frame; this observation is our own. The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet. To whom it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The first couplet opens with an allusion taken from the Qur'an. "Ve’n-necm" means "By the star" and is the first word of the surah of the Star (Necm). The beauty spots on the beloved's face are compared to stars, and the eyebrow above these stars becomes the basmala written at the head of the surah. In calligraphy the elongated form of the basmala resembles a curved eyebrow. The beloved's face is thus read like a page of the Qur'an. The second couplet rests on a popular belief: looking into a mirror at night was thought to be unwholesome. The poet compares the bright face framed by black locks to a mirror left in the night and says that looking at it makes the eye sick. This couplet is a good example of the tendency Babaarslan notes in Vâzıh to carry popular beliefs into poetry.

The third couplet is built like a syllogism. The beloved's street is paradise; the rivals are like the sin that keeps a person from paradise. It is therefore fitting that the beloved should drive the rivals from his street. In the fourth couplet there is a pun between "ṭāḳ" (arch) and "ṭāḳat" (endurance): the arch of the eyebrow has exhausted the lover's strength, and sorrow for the shapely stature has bent his own. The last couplet ends the ghazal with an invitation to drink. "God is generous for tomorrow" is a popular saying that leaves the worry of the future to God, and it shows the entry into poetry of the everyday spoken language Babaarslan mentions. This close also recalls the idea of "living for today" in Nedîm's poetry; Babaarslan considers Vâzıh in general a follower of Nedîm.

Bibliography

Online sources