Original Persian Text

Metre: Mefâʿîlün mefâʿîlün mefâʿîlün mefâʿîlün (metre identified by us)

The Arabic-script text in the edition of Latîfî (the letter گ is printed as ک in the edition):

بدل نی فکر سیر کل نه کلکشت چمن دارم
ازان روزی که در کوی سمنبویی وطن دارم

Reading in Latin letters (our reading):

Be-dil ne fikr-i seyr-i gül ne gül-geşt-i çemen dârem
Ez-ân rûzî ki der kûy-i semen-bûyî vatan dârem

In English

1. Since the day I made my home in the street of a jasmine-scented beloved, my heart has no thought of looking at roses nor of strolling in the meadow.

Literary and Historical Commentary

A Persian Response Poem

This opening couplet is the only Persian example of Refîkî's verse to survive. Latîfî introduces it as one of the nazires written to Emîr Hüsrev-i Dihlevî, whom he calls the prince of Persian poets. This thirteenth- and fourteenth-century poet of India is known to have been one of the masters imitated in Ottoman poetic gatherings; but Latîfî does not say which of his ghazals Refîkî answered, and we could not identify the model here. Hüsameddin writes that Refîkî had a divan containing kasides and ghazals in three languages. No other piece survives to show that the Persian part existed.

The Lover Who Gives Up the Garden

The couplet tells of the lover turning away from the pleasures of spring. Looking at roses and strolling in the meadow are the familiar occupations of spring gatherings in divan poetry. The lover no longer needs them, for he has made his home in the street of a jasmine-scented beloved; all the scent and beauty of the garden is found in that street. "Semen-bû" means jasmine-scented, and by setting another flower against the rose it makes the choice through scent. The rhyme of the opening couplet is "çemen" and "vatan", and the refrain is "dârem", I have. The edition's footnote renders the sense as "Since my heart made its home where a jasmine-scented beloved dwells, it wishes neither to gaze on beauties nor to walk in the garden"; "gül", rose, can also be read here as beauties. Because the Arabic-script text in Hüsameddin's e-book is garbled in the digital copy, Latîfî's printed text has been followed. Hüsameddin's note on the trilingual divan is quoted in Refîkî Ali Çelebi (İbrîzâde).

Bibliography

Online sources