Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Fetīl-i şem‘-i cānı āh bir cānāna yandırdım
Elem pervānegānın çevre yanımda ṭolandırdım
Gözümde eşk-i ḫūn-ālūd ṣanmañ ‘īd-i vaṣlında
Libās-ı allarla merdüm-i çeşmi ṭonandırdım
Nüvīs-i vaṣf-ı līmūn-ı zenaḫdānıñı eylerken
Eyā ḳaşı ḳalem ben ḫāmeniñ aġzın ṣulandırdım

In English

1. Ah, I lit the wick of the candle of my soul for a beloved; I made the moths of grief circle around me, at my side.

2. Do not think that the tears in my eye are stained with blood; on the feast day of union I dressed the pupil of my eye in red clothes.

3. O you whose eyebrow is like a pen stroke, while writing the description of the lemon of your chin I made my pen's mouth water.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is the tenth piece in the Mukatta‘ât section of the Dîvânçe. Babaarslan describes it as a nazm; it has no pen name (mahlas). It has three couplets and is written in the hezec pattern "mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün". The redif (refrain word) is "-dırdım", and the rhyme is the "-an" of "yan, ṭolan, ṭonan, ṣulan". Both lines of the opening couplet rhyme.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The three couplets set up three separate comparisons, and each is tied through the verbs in "-dırdım" to something the poet himself has done. In the first couplet the soul is compared to a candle and griefs to the moths circling it. In divan poetry the moth is the symbol of the lover who throws himself into the flame; here it is the lover who lights the candle, and the moths are his griefs. In the second couplet the bloody tears turn into the red clothes worn at a feast. The word "merdüm" means both the pupil of the eye and a person; the poet imagines the pupil as a little person dressed in festive clothes. This is the double entendre (tevriye) of the couplet. Since the day of union is a feast, the bloody tear is here the colour of joy.

The last couplet compares the beloved's chin to a lemon. The sourness of lemon makes the mouth water; the poet says that while describing this chin he made the "mouth" of his pen water. Calling the tip of the pen its mouth, and the wetting of a pen dipped in ink, lie behind this wordplay. Comparing the eyebrow to a pen also forms a congruence of images (tenasüp) drawn from writing. The choice of comparisons from everyday life fits the local and light, coquettish manner that Babaarslan notes in Vâzıh's poetry.

Bibliography

Online sources