Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilün (remel-i mahbûn)

İdemez kimse revân makdem-i cânâna güzer
Yaşumuñ gayrı oda degmek ile hûn-ı ciger
Kıl gibi geldügine yüzine her hâruñ âh
Dilümüñ gonçe-sıfat içine od düşdi yanar
Nergise beñzedile dîde-i hˇâb-âlûdın
Bî-basardur dise ger ehl-i nazar egri nazar
Ruhınuñ nakşı nigâruñ olalı dilde rakam
Zerre deñlü de görinmez gözüme şems ü kamer
Ne ‘acebdür ki miyânını bulup itdi kenâr
‘İlm-i gayb okımış imiş meger evvelde kemer
Yaşumuñ adını bârân kosa yârân ne ‘aceb
Bu meseldür ki lakab her kişiye gökden iner
Korkmaya kaddine di serv Refîkî yâruñ
Râst-gû olana yokdur çü bilürsin ki hazer

In English

1. None but my tears and the blood of my liver, which has touched the fire, can flow and pass to the place where the beloved sets foot.

2. Alas, because every thorn has come out on his face like a hair, fire has fallen into my heart, closed like a bud, and it burns.

3. If the men of insight who liken his sleepy eye to the narcissus then call the narcissus blind, theirs is a crooked look.

4. Since the image of the beloved’s cheek was inscribed in my heart, neither sun nor moon appears to my eye even as a mote.

5. How strange that the belt found his waist and embraced it; the belt, it seems, had studied the science of the unseen beforehand.

6. No wonder if friends name my tears “rain”; there is a saying that everyone’s nickname comes down from the sky.

7. Refîkî, call the beloved’s stature a cypress without fear; for, as you know, the one who speaks straight has nothing to fear.

Literary and Historical Commentary

The Belt’s Knowledge of the Unseen

A belt that has found an invisible waist is the joke of the fifth couplet. The beloved’s waist is so slender that by convention it is counted as non-existent, something invisible whose existence cannot be known. Yet the belt has found this waist and wrapped itself around it. The poet puts this achievement down to the belt having studied beforehand the “ilm-i gayb”, the science of knowing the unseen. The phrase “kenâr itmek” also faces two ways, meaning both to embrace and to step aside. The same play continues in the sixth couplet with a proverb: people say that “a nickname comes down from the sky”, so it is fitting that tears should be called “rain”, since rain too comes down from the sky.

The last couplet rests on the word “râst”, which joins truthfulness and straightness. To liken the beloved’s stature to a cypress takes courage, but the cypress is “râst”, perfectly straight, and the “râst-gû”, the one who speaks truly, has nothing to fear. The third couplet is more involved: the beloved’s sleepy eye is likened to the narcissus, and in the tradition the narcissus is a flower that has eyes but does not see. The line seems to say that those who make this comparison have a “crooked” look themselves; still, the link between the two lines is not certain, and the translation offers one reading. The sense of the second couplet is not entirely clear either: “every thorn coming out on the face like a hair” may point to the down appearing on the beloved’s face; the lover’s heart, closed like a bud, therefore burns from within.

On Şeyhî’s Model, in Another Metre

The ghazal’s model in the Mecma‘u’n-Nezâ’ir is a poem by Şeyhî: “Ey sabâ ger menzil-i cânâna kılursañ güzer / Gülşen-i cândur gözümden gözle rûşen kıl nazar.” Nazmî gives the series in the remel section. Refîkî’s lines, however, fall into the remel-i mahbûn pattern (fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilün), and the metre given at the head of the text rests on that scansion. The rhyme is the same as in the model: güzer, ciger, nazar, kamer, kemer, hazer. It is nowhere in Pervâne Bey’s collection.

Bibliography

Online sources