Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: fā‘ilātün / fā‘ilātün / fā‘ilātün / fā‘ilün

Yeñi açılmış bu dil-ber bir gül-i ra‘nā gibi
Bilmem ammā ġālibā bir şūḫ-ı nev-peydā gibi
Cām Bedaḫşāndan Sitanbūla gelüp seyrān-ıla
Ġālaṭa seyrin ider merd-i ġarīb-sīmā gibi
Barmaġına sīmden bir ḫalḳa ṭaḳmış o güzel
Çeşme-i āb-ı muṣaffāda gümüş burma gibi
Geydirir şeyṭāna pāpūç ibni şeyḫe baḳ hele
Babasına ḫiẕmet eyler ḫādim-i dānā gibi
Şekl-i dest-i merḥabāsıdır diyorlar ḫancerin
Vāżıḥā ṣor anı sen ammā bu söz aḳvā gibi

In English

1. This heart-stealer is like a lovely rose newly opened; I do not know, but he seems like a coquette who has newly appeared.

2. The wine cup has come from Badakhshan to Istanbul on an outing; it strolls about Galata like a man with a stranger's face.

3. That beauty has put a silver ring on his finger, like a twisted silver ornament in a fountain of clear water.

4. Just look at the sheikh's son: he would make the devil wear shoes (that is, he can outwit the devil himself); yet he serves his father like a learned servant.

5. They say his dagger has the shape of a hand held out in greeting; O Vâzıh, ask him yourself, though this word seems the soundest opinion.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The ghazal has five couplets and is written in the remel pattern "fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün". The redif (refrain word) is "gibi" (like), and the rhyme is the "-ā" of "ra‘nā, peydā, sīmā, burma, dānā, aḳvā". Each couplet ends in a comparison; the redif "like" gives the poem the air of a sketchbook of descriptions. The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The first couplet compares a young beauty to a freshly opened rose. In the second the subject suddenly shifts to the wine cup: in divan poetry Badakhshan is named as the land of the red precious stone called la‘l, and red wine is often compared to that stone. The poet likens the cup filled with red wine to a stranger who has come from Badakhshan to Istanbul and takes him for a walk in Galata. In the third couplet the silver ring is compared to a twisted silver ornament in clear water; the whiteness of the finger is imagined together with the brightness of the water.

The fourth couplet rests on a popular saying. In Turkish a very cunning person is said to be able to "make the devil wear his shoes backwards"; Özçakmak cites this couplet as an example of Vâzıh's use of idioms. That the sheikh's son is cunning enough to deceive the devil and yet behaves like an obedient servant towards his father gives the couplet a light mockery. The word "aḳvā" in the last couplet denotes, in the language of Islamic law, the strongest opinion on a question. Vâzıh was a scholar who served as mufti of Amasya, and he himself writes that in his fatwas he tried to tell which opinion deserved preference and which was weak or most reliable. Weighing a piece of gossip about a dagger shaped like a "hand of greeting" in the language of a fatwa creates the joke of the couplet; this reading is our own.

Historical Context

The ghazal names Istanbul and Galata. Some time after his father's death in 1784, Vâzıh went to Istanbul for higher studies and studied at the Süleymaniye madrasas. According to Babaarslan he himself reports that during this time he learned Latin from a man called İsa of Galata; the source quoted by Özçakmak also says that he learned French from a non-Muslim state interpreter living in Galata. These records show that the poet knew Galata. Whether the ghazal was written during his Istanbul years or after his return to Amasya is not known.

Bibliography

Academic studies

  • Giyasi Babaarslan, "Amasyalı Vâzıh ve Dîvânçesi", Akademik Dil ve Edebiyat Dergisi, 5(4), 2021, pp. 1922-1984 (text of the poem: p. 1958; Mustafa Vâzıh, Dîvânçe, Ankara University, Department of Manuscripts, Mustafa Con A 495/III, fols. 67a-67b). https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/akaded/article/993264
  • Giyasi Babaarslan, "Amasyalı Vâzıh ve Dîvânçesi", Akademik Dil ve Edebiyat Dergisi, 5(4), 2021, pp. 1924-1930 (life and description of the Dîvânçe). https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/akaded/article/993264
  • Fatma Özçakmak, "Mustafa Vâzıh Efendi ve Dîvânçe'si", Kesit Akademi Dergisi, 7(26), 2021, pp. 255-278, p. 259.
  • Fatma Özçakmak, "Mustafa Vâzıh Efendi ve Dîvânçe'si", Kesit Akademi Dergisi, 7(26), 2021, pp. 255-278, p. 270.

Online sources