Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Bir elde dāne-i zeytūn bir elde tīġ-ı ḫūn-ḫᵛārı
İder ol ġamze-i cellād ‘uşşāḳa vefādārī
Olup seyyāḥ-ı sā’il Māverā’ü’n-nehri seyr itdi
Naẓīrin bulmadı çeşmim görüñ ol şūḫ-ı Bulġārı
Hemān sen mā-cerā-yı çeşmimi iġmāż-ı ‘ayn eyle
Meżā der-mā-meżā-yı ḫancer-i ḳahr u sitemkārı
Miyān-bendi midir ya tār-ı Ferḫārı mıdır bilmem
Bu ‘aḳdiñ pek hele müşkildir emr-i ḥall-i iẓhārı
O ṭıflıñ aġzına baḳma bir ānda var bir ānda yoḳ
Ḫuṣūṣā şer‘an ey Vāżıḥ nedir iḳrār u inkārı

In English

1. An olive pit in one hand and a blood-drinking sword in the other: this is how that executioner glance shows loyalty to lovers.

2. My eye became a wandering beggar and toured Transoxiana; it found no equal to that Bulgar coquette, behold.

3. Just close your eyes to what has befallen my eye; what the dagger of wrath and cruelty has done is past, and the past is past.

4. Is this the sash of his waist or a thread of Ferhâr, I do not know; to untie and explain this knot is very hard indeed.

5. Do not look at that child's mouth, one moment it is there and the next it is not; and in the sacred law above all, O Vâzıh, what is admission and what is denial?

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". There is no redif (refrain word); the rhyme rests on the "-ārı" of "ḫūn-ḫᵛārı, vefādārī, Bulġārı, sitemkārı, iẓhārı, inkārı". The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The first couplet is built on a contrast. The glance holds an olive pit in one hand and a blood-drinking sword in the other. The olive is a symbol of peace; since prayer beads are also made from olive pits, "dāne-i zeytūn" may also suggest a prayer bead. In either reading the glance has one gentle face and one deadly face, and the poet calls this, with bitter irony, "loyalty". In the second couplet the eye is compared to a wandering dervish touring Transoxiana; since the distant lands of Turkestan are famed for their beauties, this journey shows that the "Bulgar" beauty has no equal.

"İġmāż-ı ‘ayn" in the third couplet means closing the eyes, overlooking; "meżā mā meżā" is an Arabic saying meaning "what is past is past". In the fourth couplet the thin waist-sash is compared to a thread from the city of Ferhâr, a place named in divan poetry for its beauties. "‘Aḳd" means both knot and contract, and "ḥall" means both to untie and to settle a question; with these two meanings the couplet suggests both a knot tied at the waist and a legal question hard to resolve.

The last couplet joins the motif of the small mouth with the language of Islamic law. The beloved's mouth is so small that one moment it seems to exist and the next it does not. "İkrar" and "inkâr" are legal terms for admitting and denying something before a court; the poet seems to ask what ruling the sacred law would give on the existence and non-existence of the mouth. It is striking to find these terms used in jest in the poetry of a scholar who served as mufti of Amasya; this assessment is our own.

Bibliography

Online sources