Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mefâ‘îlün mefâ‘îlün fe‘ûlün (hezec-i mahzûf)

Elüñden dil-berâ feryâd feryâd
Ki bir lahza gamuñdan olmadum şâd
Hudâ-dâd olsun ol üstâda çün kim
Saña ta‘lîm itmiş harf-i bî-dâd
Gidüp raht-ı hıred dîvâne oldum
Yolum urduñ bugün çün ey perî-zâd
Fakîh-i ‘ışk kavli mûcebince
Kul oldum saña düşdüm gamdan âzâd
Elif kaddüñçün oldı kâmetüm dâl
Ki maksûd âdemîden addur ad
Süvâr-ı ‘arsa-i ‘ışk ol durur kim
Piyâde kat‘-ı menzil ide bî-zâd
Hilâl ebrûñ görüp bayram idelden
Refîkî rûz-ı ‘îdı eylemez yâd

In English

1. O heart-stealer, from your hand, alas, alas; not for one moment have I been glad, because of your grief.

2. May God give that master his due who taught you the letter of injustice (“bî-dâd”).

3. The baggage of reason gone, I have gone mad; for today, O fairy-born, you waylaid me on the road.

4. By the ruling of the jurist of love I became your slave, and so was set free from grief.

5. Because of your alif-like stature my stature has bent like a dâl; for what is sought from man is a name (alif and dâl side by side spell “ad”, name).

6. The true horseman of the field of love is he who on foot, without provisions, crosses the stages of the road.

7. Since he celebrated the feast on seeing your crescent brow, Refîkî no longer remembers the day of the feast.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Alif, Dâl and “Ad”

In the fifth couplet the letters alif and dâl come together to spell a word. The beloved’s stature is upright like alif, the first letter of the Arabic alphabet, while the lover’s has bent like the letter dâl. The second line sets the two letters side by side: alif and dâl together spell the word “ad”, name, and “maksûd âdemîden addur ad” means that what man truly seeks is to leave a name, a reputation behind. The lover’s bent stature thus joins the beloved’s alif to form a name. Games of this kind, which gather meaning from the shapes of letters, call to mind the closeness to writing of Refîkî, who was also known as a calligrapher; but this is an impression drawn from the poem, not something the sources state.

The language of law and of the road runs through the other couplets as well. In the second couplet “dâd” (justice) and “bî-dâd” (injustice) confront each other: the prayer “Hudâ-dâd olsun” wishes that God give the master who taught the beloved the letter of injustice what he deserves. The beloved of the third couplet is a highwayman; the baggage of reason (“raht-ı hıred”) is gone and the lover is left mad. In the fourth couplet love is treated like a question of jurisprudence, and by the jurist’s ruling servitude is the way to freedom from grief. The last couplet, in which Refîkî addresses himself, uses the well-known link between the crescent brow and the feast: to see the beloved’s brow is like sighting the crescent of the feast, so the lover forgets the feast of the calendar.

The Models of Ahmedî and Kâdirî

Nazmî gives the ghazal as a nazire to the poem of Ahmedî that begins “Meger zülfüñe irdi subh-dem bâd / Ki kıldı yir yüzini cennet-âbâd”. The Pervâne Bey Mecmuası names as the forerunner of this metre and rhyme Kâdirî Çelebi’s ghazal “Benem ‘ışḳ ehline ‘ālemde üstād / Ne Mecnūn’dur benüm yanumda Ferhād”. The text there runs to only five couplets; the fourth and fifth of the Mecma‘, the jurist of love and the alif-dâl game, are not found there. In the second couplet the Pervâne reads “üstāddan kim / Saña ta‘līm ḳılmış”. Refîkî wrote one more ghazal on this model (Ghazal 11).

Bibliography

Online sources