Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mef‘ūlü / fā‘ilātü / mefā‘īlü / fā‘ilün

Şöyle dönüşdi dün gece bezmiñ köçekleri
Bāġ-ı cinānda ṣanki Ḫudānıñ melekleri
Ol māh gibi bulamadı āḫir bu dūd velī
Döndi dolaşdı ḫaylī zamāndır felekleri
Dūr ola nīce ḫāllerinden iki gözüm
Oldur benim cihānda dü çeşmüm yedekleri
Öldürmege beni ola ber-çīde āstīn
Cānlar virir o dem baña sīmīn bilekleri
Vāżıḥ yine geyinmiş o meh bir ḳumāş-ı Şām
Kevkeb gibidir anıñ o zerrīn benekleri

In English

1. Last night the dancing boys of the gathering whirled so that they seemed God's angels in the garden of paradise.

2. In the end this smoke (of my sighs) could not find one like that moon; yet for a long time it has wandered round the heavens.

3. Though my two eyes keep far from his many beauty spots, those spots are, in this world, the spares of my two eyes.

4. Let him have rolled up his sleeves to kill me; at that moment his silver wrists grant me lives.

5. O Vâzıh, that moon has put on a Damascus fabric again; its golden spots are like stars.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The ghazal has five couplets and is written in the muzari pattern of aruz (quantitative metre), "mef‘ūlü fā‘ilātü mefā‘īlü fā‘ilün". The redif (refrain word) is the suffix "-leri"; the rhyme is the "-ek" of "köçek, melek, felek, yedek, bilek, benek". That most of the rhyme words are Turkish makes the language of the ghazal plainer. Both lines of the opening couplet end with rhyme and refrain. The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet. To whom it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal opens with a clear example of the tendency Babaarslan sees in Vâzıh to reflect the social life of his time. A "köçek" is a young male dancer who performed at entertainments; the poet compares the whirling of the dancing boys at the previous night's gathering to angels whirling in the garden of paradise. An everyday scene of entertainment is thus joined to a picture of paradise. In the second couplet the smoke of the lover's sighs rises to the sky and wanders round the heavens for a long time, but finds no moon like the beloved. The phrase "döndi dolaşdı" (went round and round) is close to spoken language and forms a link of sound and sense with the whirling of the dancers in the first couplet.

The third couplet is not entirely clear. The black beauty spots are compared to the black pupil of the eye, and the poet counts them as the "spares" of his own eyes; in the translation we have followed this comparison. In the fourth couplet "āstīn ber-çīde" means rolling up one's sleeves, setting to work; when the beloved rolls up his sleeves to kill the lover, his wrists, white as silver, come into view, and this sight gives the lover life. That death and life spring from the same movement forms the antithesis of the couplet. In the last couplet the beloved has put on a gold-spotted Damascus fabric. Damascus fabrics were well-known precious textiles in the Ottoman period; by comparing the golden spots on the moon-faced beloved's garment to stars, the poet sets up a congruence of images (tenasüp) between moon and stars and ends the ghazal with a concrete detail drawn from dress.

Bibliography

Online sources