Original Persian Text

Ez ruḫ-ı berber-i mâ âyine raḫşân bâşed
Ḳâleb-i âyine râ ṣûret-i û cân bâşed
Ṭabaḳ-ı âyîne ez ʿaks-i lebeş pür-şekerest
Şâne râ ten zi ṭamaʿ z'ân heme dendân bâşed
Raḫne raḫneest dilem şâneveş ez ġam ki çerâ
Dest-ber-dest çü âyîne-i dükkân bâşed
Âh ki ez dûd-ı dil ân mâh ne-dâred bâkî
Ki berûy heme çün âyîne-i ḫandân bâşed
Dil-i Dervîş dürüst ez dil-i tu key mâned
K'in dü-dil fi'l-mes̱el âyîne vü sindân bâşed

In English

1. From our barber's face the mirror glitters; his image becomes the soul of the mirror's frame.

2. The face of the mirror fills with sugar from the reflection of his lip; and so the comb's body turns all teeth from craving.

3. My heart is split and split again like a comb from grief, because he passes from hand to hand like the mirror of the shop.

4. Alas, that moon has no fear at all of the smoke rising from the heart (the sigh); so he is like a mirror that smiles at everyone.

5. How could Dervîş's heart stay whole against your heart, since these two hearts are, as the saying goes, a mirror and an anvil?

The rendering follows the translation in the footnote of Filiz Kılıç's edition; the edition translates the word "ṭamaʿ" in the second couplet as "jealousy", here it is given in its dictionary sense of "craving, desire".

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The ghazal is addressed to a barber; Âşık Çelebi introduces it with the words "Bir berber ḥaḳḳında bu ġazeli ḫûbdur", this ghazal of his about a barber is fine. The five-couplet Persian poem survives only in his tezkire of poets. The words "raḫşân, cân, dendân, dükkân, ḫandân, sindân" rhyme on "-ân", followed by the redif (refrain word) "bâşed" (becomes, may be). The pen name opens the closing couplet in the phrase "Dil-i Dervîş", the heart of Dervîş. The metre is not stated in the edition.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

All the images of the ghazal come from the furnishings of a barber's shop: mirror, comb and shop. Poems in which the beloved is portrayed as a craftsman's apprentice or tradesman are far from rare in divan poetry; Dervîş Çelebi draws this beloved together with the tools of his trade. The barber's face, in the first couplet, makes the mirror shine and gives life to the empty frame of the mirror. In the second couplet the lip reflected in the mirror fills it with sugar; the teeth of the comb are the result of craving for this sugar. The play between the comb already having teeth and "turning all teeth" combines with the congruence of images (tenasüp) between sugar and teeth.

In the third couplet the comb is likened this time to the poet's heart: the heart is torn by grief like the gaps between the comb's teeth. The reason is that the beloved goes "dest-ber-dest", from hand to hand, like the shop mirror. A barber's mirror passes into every customer's hand; the simile reproaches the beloved for being open to all. Behind the fourth couplet lies the thought of a mirror clouded by the smoke of sighs; this moon-faced one does not fear the lovers' sighs and remains a mirror smiling at everyone. The simile "âyîne vü sindân" (mirror and anvil) in the last couplet ties the ghazal together: old mirrors were of polished metal and would stay fragile before an anvil; Dervîş's heart is the mirror, the beloved's heart the anvil. This reading of mirror and anvil is not certain; the edition leaves the simile unexplained.

Historical Context

Who the barber was, and where and when the ghazal was written, are unknown. When Âşık Çelebi says that Dervîş Çelebi inclined more to Persian, he puts this ghazal forward as an example of that inclination. Among the variants Filiz Kılıç lists in her notes, some manuscripts read "ez" for "ân", "türkî" for "key" and "dûd-ı dil" for "dü-dil". The family known as the Halebîzâdes and the poet's posts are described in the article Dervîş Mehmed Çelebi.

Bibliography

Online sources