Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mef‘ûlü mefâ‘îlü mefâ‘îlü fe‘ûlün

Göz yaşlu göñül zülf-i perîşânlar içinde
Ḳaldum karâñu gicede süʿbânlar içinde
Ḫaddüñi ḳoyup varalıdan gülşene ey dost
Gül lâle beni yaḳdı gülistânlar içinde

In English

1. My eyes in tears, my heart among tangled locks of hair, I was left in a pitch-dark night among serpents. (The beloved's black, curling hair is likened both to a dark night and to snakes. In three biographical anthologies the line ends with "rains" instead of "serpents"; in that reading the lover is stranded in the dark night amid the rain, and the rain answers the tears of the first line.)

2. O friend, ever since I left your cheek and went to the rose garden, the rose and the tulip have set me on fire in the midst of the gardens. (The red rose and the tulip are the colour of fire; because they recall the beloved's rosy cheek, they burn the lover instead of consoling him.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

What we have are only two couplets of a ghazal. Edip Tâcî (Tâcî Bey) left no divan; what survives of his verse is a handful of pieces preserved by the biographical anthologies of poets (tezkire) and by the anthologies of response poems. Latîfî quotes these two couplets with the words "Bu maṭla‘ anuñ eş‘âr-ı güher-niåârındandur" (this opening couplet is among his pearl-scattering poems). The first couplet, whose two lines rhyme, is the opening couplet (matla) of a ghazal; the second must come from somewhere inside the same poem. The refrain word (redif) is "içinde" (within, among), and the rhyme falls on "-ânlar": perîşânlar, süʿbânlar, gülistânlar. The tezkire gives no metre; the couplets scan in the hezec metre of aruz (quantitative metre) as "mef‘ûlü mefâ‘îlü mefâ‘îlü fe‘ûlün".

The opening couplet is the one most often cited under Tâcî's name in the anthologies of the period. Besides Latîfî, Beyânî, Kınalızâde Hasan Çelebi and Gelibolulu Mustafa Âlî all give it as the example in their entries on Tâcî; these three, however, quote only the first couplet and read the rhyme word of its second line as "bârânlar" (rains). The second couplet is found only in Latîfî. Nothing is known about to whom or on what occasion the ghazal was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The real strength of the opening couplet is that both readings give it a meaningful unity. In Latîfî's text the lover is left "in a dark night among serpents". In divan poetry the beloved's black, curling, long hair is often likened to a snake, and dishevelled locks to the night. The "zülf-i perîşân" (tangled locks) of the first line and the night and serpents of the second thus become parts of a single image: the lover's heart is caught in the beloved's hair, and that hair has turned into both a dark night and a nest of snakes. The comparison is never stated outright but left to the reader, which makes the couplet an instance of metaphor (istiare).

In the reading "bârânlar" found in Beyânî, Kınalızâde and Âlî, the weight shifts to the tears. Since the first line begins with "göz yaşlu" (eyes in tears), the rain becomes nature's counterpart of the lover's own weeping, and a congruence of images (tenasüp) is built between tears and rain across the two lines. It is impossible today to say with certainty which reading came from the poet's pen. Canım's critical edition of Latîfî takes "süʿbânlar" as its text; the fact that the three later anthologists all diverge in the same direction shows that they followed another version.

The second couplet shows another face of separation from the beloved. The lover has gone to the rose garden in search of consolation, but the rose and tulip blooming there remind him of the beloved's cheek and renew his pain instead of easing it. In "Gül lâle beni yaḳdı" (the rose and the tulip burned me) there is a link between the fiery colour of the flowers and the verb "to burn"; the use of both "gülşen" and "gülistân" (rose garden) in the same couplet strengthens the garden image. Read together, the two couplets show a lover who finds peace neither in the night nor in the garden.

Historical Context

The anthologies present Tâcî as the treasurer (defterdar) of Prince Bayezid during the years of his governorship of the Amasya province; he was the father of Câfer Çelebi and Sa'dî Çelebi. Latîfî says of him "Münşe'âtı vâfir müdevven kitâbdur ammâ eş‘ârı nâdir ü kem-yâbdur": his official and private letters are numerous enough to fill a book, while his poetry is scarce and hard to find. Kınalızâde cites the same opening couplet as proof that Tâcî was "ehl-i kemâlün ser-tâcı", the crowning head of the accomplished, and bases this chiefly on his having served Bayezid as treasurer and on his two famous sons. Âlî, for his part, criticises Âşık Çelebi for calling Tâcî Bayezid's tutor (lala); according to his own information Tâcî was the prince's city intendant (şehremini), then treasurer and chancery secretary of his council.

Tâcî's date of death is given in two ways in the sources. The TDV Encyclopaedia of Islam, relying on the chronogram lines in his son Sa'dî Çelebi's Münşeât and on Kâtib Çelebi, adopts the year 890 (1485). Hüseyin Hüsameddin, in his History of Amasya, identifies Tâcî Bey with Tâceddin İbrahim Paşa, who built a mosque at Köprü, and places his death in Muharram 906 (1500). At which point in this life the couplets were written is not known.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Latîfî, Tezkiretü'ş-Şuarâ ve Tabsıratü'n-Nuzamâ, ed. Rıdvan Canım, Ankara: Ministry of Culture and Tourism Publications, 2018 (e-book), pp. 158-159, entry on Tâcî.
  • Beyânî, Tezkiretü'ş-Şu'arâ, ed. Aysun Sungurhan, Ankara: Ministry of Culture and Tourism Publications, 2017 (e-book), p. 44, entry on Tâcî.
  • Kınalızâde Hasan Çelebi, Tezkiretü'ş-Şu'arâ, ed. Aysun Sungurhan, Ankara: Ministry of Culture and Tourism Publications, 2017 (e-book), p. 251, entry on Tâcî.
  • Gelibolulu Mustafa Âlî, Künhü'l-ahbâr'ın Tezkire Kısmı, ed. Mustafa İsen, Ankara: Ministry of Culture and Tourism Publications, 2017 (e-book), entry on Tâcî.
  • Hüseyin Hüsameddin, Amasya Tarihi, vol. 8, pp. 12-18, entry on Tâceddin İbrahim Paşa (Tâcî Bey).

Books

  • İsmail E. Erünsal, "Tâcîzâde Câfer Çelebi", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 39, Istanbul 2010, pp. 353-356. islamansiklopedisi.org.tr

Online sources