Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Cevr ise bî-hadd belâ kûtehligidir ömrümün
Çekmeğe bu derdi Ca'fer ömr-i bî-pâyân gerek

In English

1. The (beloved's) cruelty is boundless; the calamity is the shortness of my life. O Ca'fer, to bear this pain one would need an endless life.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poet's name appears as the pen name (mahlas) in the second line, while the first line does not rhyme; these two features show the couplet to be the makta of a ghazal (gazel), that is, the last couplet, in which the pen name stands. Hüsameddin gives it after the kaside fragment with the words "şu beyti de ele geçen eş'ârındandır", this couplet too is among his poems that have come to hand. Its redif (refrain word) is "gerek" and its rhyme the last syllable of "bî-pâyân"; the other couplets of the ghazal have not come to light.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The couplet is built like a reckoning. The lover faces two magnitudes: the beloved's cruelty is boundless, while the lover's life is short. The real calamity is that there is not life enough to bear this cruelty. The poet states the conclusion addressing himself: to bear this pain to the end one would need a life without end. "Bî-hadd" and "bî-pâyân", boundless and endless, tie the two lines of the couplet together; "kûtehlik", shortness, stands between these two infinities. The antithesis carries the whole weight of the couplet. Such a reckoning is one of the known ways in divan poetry of turning the lover's complaint into a kind of boast: the lover does not wish to flee, he only laments that his life will not suffice.

Historical Context

Neither the ghazal it belongs to nor its date is known. Hüsameddin's words "come to hand" suggest that he saw the couplet in an anthology (mecmua) or in one of Ca'fer's own manuscripts, but he does not name his source. Ca'fer Efendi's life is told in the article Ca'fer Efendi of Zara: Commentator, Judge and Poet.

Bibliography

Online sources