A History of Ottoman Poetry: 1300-1450. Volume 1 by E. J. W. Gibb

Author:E. J. W. Gibb [Gibb, E. J. W.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780906094747
Google: FpK4zQEACAAJ
Publisher: E.J.W. Gibb Memorial
Published: 1900-09-15T20:42:35+00:00

7 The battle waged to capture lovers’ hearts.

1 Aloes-wood is burned for the fragrant incense-like perfume it produces. The black locks of the beauty are like the black charcoal in the censer on which the aloes-wood is laid to be burned. There is in this couplet a series of untranslatable iháms. or ‘amphibologies;’ the word ῾úd meaning both ‘aloeswood’ and ‘lute;’ qánún, ‘rule’ and ‘dulcimer;’ ney, ‘whatsoever’ and ‘flute;’ chenk, ‘clutch’ and ‘harp;’ but I cannot make any clear sense out of the verse taking these words as the names of musical instruments.

2 By her reflection falling on it, or merely by her holding it, or perhaps by the fact that it will taste sweeter when drunk in her sweet company.

3 The ‘tongue’ of the taper is the wick. ‘To extend the tongue,’ is a phrase meaning ‘to be talkative,’ generally, in a bad sense. The idea in the verse is that though the taper or candle (one of the conventional symbols for a bright and smiling beauty) it is left unheeded in the candlestick or lantern when thy far brighter radiance shines forth, i. e. when thou gracest the banquet with thy lovely presence.

1 The eye of a beauty is conceived as restless, ever making assault upon the hearts of lovers. So my soul knows no peace, — it is distraught for her hair, yet it can fly for refuge only to her restless eye.

2 The poet here likens his eyes, stained with the tears of blood shed for his love, to the red lips of his mistress, and to the early martyrs in their gory raiment. Ja῾fer-i Tayyár, the brother of ῾Alí, died fighting for the Prophet at Múta. Huseyn and Hasan are the sons of ῾Alí and the grandsons of the Prophet. Huseyn was slain in the famous Battle of Kerbelá, while Hasan was killed in Medína. Possibly Burhán may have had in his mind the Hadís, ‘Whoso dieth for Love, verily he dieth a martyr,’ There is further an íhám or amphibology in the word ja῾fer, which besides being a proper name, means ‘a stream,’ to which the poet may aptly compare his weeping eyes.

3 Uweys-i Qarení (or Qaren), i. e. Uweys of the tribe of Qaren, a famous saint of the early days of Islam, was a native of Yemen. Though contemporary with the Prophet, he never saw him; but having heard that he had lost one of his teeth, and not knowing which, he broke all his own to make sure that the same one was gone. He was killed in battle in 37 (658), fighting alongside of ῾Alí, the Prophet’s son-in-law, against the usurper Mu῾áwíya. Burhán’s idea is that he will waste his own body till it becomes very thin and so resembles his beloved’s waist, in like manner as Uweys-i Qaren knocked out his own teeth in order to resemble the Prophet whom he loved.

1 The old idea was that tears are really blood which undergoes a process of distillation and so

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