Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mef‘ūlü / mefā‘īlü / mefā‘īlü / fe‘ūlün

Ey ṭıfl-ı sebaḳ-ḫᵛān-ı debistān-ı leṭāfet
V’ey şūḫ-ı nev-āmūḫte-i nāz u nezāket
Yüzüñe gülen herkesi dost ṣanma eyā gül
İtdim seni Allāh te‘ālāya emānet
Maḫlūḳa ki bir ṭurfe belā oldı bu dil-ber
Vāy vāy amān Allāh nedir böyle bu āfet
Derd-i ḳad-i mevzūn elem-i kākül-i şebgūn
Püskülli belādur bize tā rūz-ı ḳıyāmet
Vāżıḥ gel e dil-ber sevelim mey içelim gel
Billāh bizi aldı kesāfet bu ne ḥālet

In English

1. O child reciting his lessons in the school of grace, O playful one newly schooled in coquetry and refinement.

2. O rose, do not take everyone who smiles to your face for a friend; I have entrusted you to God Most High.

3. This beauty has become a strange calamity for all creatures; alas, alas, God have mercy, what is this affliction.

4. The pain of your well-proportioned stature and the grief of your night-black lock are a "tasselled calamity" (a great nuisance) for us until the Day of Judgement.

5. Vâzıh (says): Come, O beauty, let us love and drink wine, come; by God, a heaviness has seized us, what a state is this.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This five-couplet ghazal is written in the hezec pattern "mef‘ūlü mefā‘īlü mefā‘īlü fe‘ūlün". There is no redif (refrain word); the rhyme is the "-et" of "leṭāfet, nezāket, emānet, āfet, ḳıyāmet, ḥālet". The pen name (mahlas) appears at the start of the last couplet. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

In the first couplet the beloved is drawn as a schoolboy: a playful youth reciting his lessons in the school of grace, newly schooled in coquetry and refinement. The image of school and lessons recurs in other ghazals of Vâzıh; in the sixteenth ghazal the beloved is again called "ṭıfl-ı nev-āmūḫte" (a newly schooled child). The second couplet brings a proverb into the poem: "Do not take everyone who smiles to your face for a friend." The sound link between "gül" (rose) and "gülmek" (to smile) adds a pun to the couplet. Özçakmak cites this couplet as an example of Vâzıh's use of proverbs and idioms; in her reading the address is "eyâ gel".

The idiom "püsküllü belā" (tasselled calamity) in the fourth couplet means a great trouble that has come upon one, and when read together with the beloved's lock it gains a new sense: the lock hanging like a tassel is truly a "tasselled" calamity. The exclamations "vāy vāy amān Allāh" in the third couplet show Vâzıh's habit of bringing everyday speech into poetry. "Leṭāfet" (grace, lightness) in the first couplet and "kesāfet" (density, heaviness) in the last are opposite notions; the poem opens with lightness and closes with heaviness. Özçakmak lists the last couplet among the examples of Vâzıh's Nedîmâne manner.

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. 1936; Mustafa Vâzıh, Dîvânçe, Ankara University, Department of Manuscripts, Mustafa Con A 495/III, fol. 60b). 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, pp. 271-272.

Online sources