Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilün (Hüsameddin's note gives no metre; the metre was determined by us)

Çün cemâlin gördü mescidde imâm ey dil-rübâ
Arkasın mihraba döndürdü yüzün senden yana
Çün teveccüh sanadır sensin dil ü cân kıblesi
Kaşların takın koyup mihrâba secde sehv ola
Göricek kaddîn kıyâmen secdeye vardım revân
Dilde tekrar eyledim sübhân-ı rabbî zü’l-‘alâ
Tâ’atim safın sımışdur nâ-müselmân gözlerin
Suretâ gerçi ki kıldım ehl-i safa iktidâ
Sen dururken bir kuru dîvâra kim secde ider
Zâhir ü bâtın niyâzım sanadır bilür Hudâ
Dilde pinhân güft ü gûyun zevkidir fikrim benim
Zâhiren halk ile gerçi eylerem zikr ü du’â
Sen Celîlî âsitân-ı yâri eyle secde-gâh
Hânkâh ü mescide varsun n’ola ehl-i riyâ

In English

1. O stealer of hearts, when the imam in the mosque saw your face, he turned his back to the prayer niche and turned his face towards you.

2. Since the one to turn towards is you, since you are the qibla of heart and soul, to leave the arch of your eyebrows and prostrate before the prayer niche would be an error. (The "prostration of forgetfulness", made in the prayer to make up for a mistake, is also called to mind.)

3. As soon as I saw your stature I fell at once from standing into prostration; in my heart I repeated the glorification "Sübhâne rabbiye'l-a'lâ", "Glory be to my Lord the Most High".

4. Your infidel eyes have broken the row of my worship and spoiled its purity; outwardly, it is true, I too followed those who stand in the row, the pure-hearted congregation.

5. Who would prostrate himself before a bare wall while you are here? Openly and in secret my supplication is to you; God knows it.

6. Though outwardly I join the people in remembrance and prayer, the only thing in my mind is the delight of speaking with you secretly in my heart.

7. O Celîlî, make the beloved's threshold your place of prostration; if the hypocrites go to the lodge and the mosque, let them go, what of it.

Literary and Historical Commentary

A Love Ghazal in the Language of Prayer

Every couplet of the ghazal (gazel) contains a word of the prayer: imam, prayer niche (mihrab), qibla, prostration, standing, glorification, row, following the imam, remembrance, supplication, dervish lodge and mosque. The poet turns all of them towards the beloved. In the first couplet the imam himself, on seeing the beloved's face, has turned his back to the mihrab; even the man who leads the worship has lost his direction. The second couplet finds a reason for this confusion: the true qibla is the beloved, and the arched eyebrows are the mihrab. The likeness between eyebrow and mihrab is a well-known image (mazmun) of divan poetry; Celîlî takes it a step further and counts prostrating before the mihrab as an error. The phrase "secde sehv ola" on one side means "the prostration would be a mistake", and on the other calls to mind the prostration of forgetfulness (sehiv secdesi) made to make good a mistake in the prayer. Such a two-sided expression is a tevriye.

The third couplet stages the movements of the prayer in order. The beloved's "kadd", stature, stands beside "kıyâm", which describes standing: the lover, standing, sees the standing beloved, falls into prostration and repeats the glorification recited in prostration. In the fourth couplet the word "saf" is drawn in two directions. The row in which worshippers stand side by side in prayer is a saf, and so is purity of heart; the phrase "ehl-i safa" calls up both the congregation standing in rows and people of pure heart. The beloved's "nâ-müselmân", pitiless, infidel eyes have broken the row of worship. "Sımak" means to break and is one of the living words of old Turkish.

A Reproach to Hypocrisy

In the last three couplets the tone changes. The "bare wall" of the fifth couplet is the mihrab itself; turning towards a stone wall in the beloved's presence is seen as meaningless. The sixth couplet states openly the gap between appearance and the inner self: an onlooker takes the poet for one who joins the people in remembrance, yet his heart is busy with another conversation. In the final couplet (makta) the poet addresses himself by his pen name and calls those who go to the lodge and the mosque "ehl-i riyâ", people who worship for show. This is an example of the well-known criticism aimed at the ascetic and the pious in divan poetry. The reproach is directed at the insincere form of worship rather than at worship itself; the couplet can also be read with the Sufi view that the true turning is love.

For Whom and by Whom

The ghazal stands in a note Hüsameddin attached to the entry on Celîlî Mehmed Çelebi. The note opens with the words "Dârâ Çelebî hakkında söylediği gazeli şudur" (this is the ghazal he spoke about Dârâ Çelebi), and its source is given as Edirneli Nazmî's Mecma'u'n-Nezâ'ir. Dârâ Çelebi was a kinsman of Celîlî who grew up in his house, a youth whose beauty became a subject for the poets of Amasya. In Dârâ's entry Hüsameddin draws the same link and says that it was Dârâ's beauty that inspired the ghazal. Dârâ's name does not occur in the ghazal; this information is Hüsameddin's, and he does not explain its basis.

The attribution, too, is open to debate. The Mecma'u'n-Nezâ'ir gives poets by their pen names, and in those same years more than one poet used the pen name "Celîlî"; the best known of them was Hâmidîzâde Celîlî of Bursa, who left a divan and a hamse. The pen name alone does not show that a ghazal under this name in the anthology belongs to Celîlî of Amasya. Whether the ghazal is found in the divan of Hâmidîzâde Celîlî, and under whose name it is recorded in M. Fatih Köksal's edition of the anthology, could not be verified. Following Hüsameddin's record, the text is placed among the poems of Celîlî of Amasya. The poet's life is told in Celîlî Mehmed Çelebi, and the story of the young man the ghazal addresses in Dârâ Çelebi.

Bibliography

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