Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

O ḳudretden mükaḥḥal çeşmi tekrār iktiḥāl itme
Yeter kendi belāsı degme ol ser-ḫoşı incitme
Yatur keştī-i ‘aşḳıñ dilde çeşmimden gider zülfüñ
O baḥr-ı nā-büne bī-hūde isḳandīl ṣarḳıtma
Cevāhirlerde ṭıflā āb-ı tāba i‘tibār ḳalmaz
Bu sermālarda yaḫ-laġzendelikler itme gel gitme
Cemāli ḫāline ol şūḫ-ı nezgiñ öykünürmüşsün
Diyār-ı Rūmda ey dāne-i fülfül oñup bitme
Görüp bu naẓmı ḥussādım ider Vāżıḥ ‘adāvetler
Semend-i ṭab‘ımızdandır bize dā’im gelen çitme

In English

1. Do not put kohl again on that eye, darkened with kohl by nature; its own mischief is enough, never hurt that drunken one.

2. The ship of your love lies at anchor in the heart, your locks go from my eye; do not lower a sounding line in vain into that bottomless sea.

3. O child, no value remains for the bright water of jewels; in these frosts do not go sliding on the ice, come, do not go.

4. They say you imitate the beauty spot on that coy beauty's face; O peppercorn, may you not thrive or grow in the land of Rum.

5. O Vâzıh, seeing this verse, those who envy me show enmity; the çitme that always reaches us comes from the horse of our own nature.

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". Rhyme and redif (refrain word) rest on the "-tme" at the end of "incitme, ṣarḳıtma, gitme, bitme, çitme"; most of these are Turkish verbs in the negative imperative and give the end of every couplet the tone of a prohibition or a warning. Building the rhyme on Turkish verbs fits the tendency towards plain and understandable language that Babaarslan sees in Vâzıh. The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet. To whom it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

In the first couplet "mükaḥḥal" means an eye darkened with kohl; "ḳudretden" means by nature, that is, darkened with kohl by the power of God. The beloved, whose eye is already dark, is told not to apply kohl again, for the eye's own mischief is enough for the lover. The eye is pictured here as a drunkard and the beloved is asked not to hurt it. The second couplet is built on the language of the sea. The ship of love lies at anchor in the heart, and the lover's tears are a bottomless sea. "İskandil" is the weighted line lowered to measure the depth of the sea; the long lock is compared to a sounding line let down into the sea of tears. The poet says that measuring the depth of this bottomless sea is in vain.

The third couplet is obscure. "Āb-ı tāb" is the "water", the name given to the brilliance of a jewel; the poet may be saying that, as water freezes in the winter cold, no value remains for the water of jewels. "Yaḫ-laġzende" means sliding on ice. The couplet can also be read as an everyday scene addressed to a child playing and sliding on the ice in winter; in the translation we have kept to the literal sense of the words. In the fourth couplet the peppercorn is scolded for imitating the dark beauty spot on the beloved's face. The phrase "oñup bitme" recalls popular curses of the type "may you not thrive". In the last couplet the enmity of the envious is likened to a "çitme" coming from the horse of the poet's nature. We could not determine the meaning of "çitme" with certainty; in the context of a horse a kick comes to mind, but this is our own guess.

Bibliography

Online sources