Original Persian Text

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

Der-ḫilḳat-i Ḫudā nigeh-i mest ān ġulām
Der-çeşm-i ḥūr nūr-ı siyāhest ḫᵛāb-nām
Şeb-ḫīz Leyli-est der-ān māh u encümān
Zerrīn şemse-est ü benek zīnet-i tamām
Pistān-ı ān ruḫet naẓar kon be-sīneeş
Dürr-i müdevverīst ber-āyīne şod maḳām

In English

1. In God's creation the drunken glance of that youth is, in the eye of a houri, a black light named "sleep".

2. Among that moon and the stars he is a Leyla who keeps vigil by night; he is a golden sunburst ornament, and the speck is the perfect adornment.

3. Look at the breast of that cheek, at his bosom: it is a round pearl that has taken its place upon a mirror.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is the ninth piece in the Mukatta‘ât section of the Dîvânçe. Babaarslan describes it as a nazm and notes that it is the only Persian piece in the section. The edition gives only the Latin-script reading of the Persian text, without a translation; the rendering above is therefore our own and is not certain. It has three couplets and is written in the muzari pattern "mef‘ūlü fā‘ilātü mefā‘īlü fā‘ilün". The rhyme is the "-ām" of "ġulām, ḫᵛāb-nām, tamām, maḳām". There is no pen name (mahlas).

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The piece is a description of a beauty, and each couplet describes a feature or an ornament. In the first couplet the drunken glance of the beauty, called "ġulām" (youth), is compared to a black light in the eye of a houri. The phrase "nūr-ı siyāh" (black light) suggests the darkness of the pupil; we have read "ḫᵛāb-nām" as "named sleep", but this reading is not certain. In the second couplet the beauty is compared to a Leyla who keeps vigil at night among the moon and the stars. Since the name "Leylī" also recalls the Arabic word "leyl" (night), a congruence of images (tenasüp) is formed with the words night, moon and star. "Şemse" is a sun-shaped gold ornament used in illumination and bookbinding; the speck can be read as the counterpart of the beauty spot on the face.

The third couplet is the least clear. "Pistān" means breast in Persian; the line tells the reader to look at the beauty's bosom and compares it to a round pearl placed upon a mirror. In divan poetry the mirror stands for a bright, white face or breast. How the word "ruḫet" (your cheek) is attached in the couplet is not clear; in the translation we have kept to the literal sense of the words. Vâzıh is known to have known Persian well enough to write works in it and to have written a verse work for teaching Persian. Persian poems are few in the Dîvânçe; this nazm, together with the thirteenth ghazal, is among the examples that show the poet using that language as a language of poetry.

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. 1964; Mustafa Vâzıh, Dîvânçe, Ankara University, Department of Manuscripts, Mustafa Con A 495/III, fol. 69a). 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. 274.

Online sources