Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilün (remel)

Göreyin odlara yansun vâ‘izâ mey-hâneler
Tûb tokınmış gibi sarsar zühd evin peymâneler
Hîç bilmem n’eyleyin sûfî ki nâsıh sözlerin
Gûşuma girmege komaz na‘re-i mestâneler
Ey perî ‘âkil nice cem‘iyyet-i hâtır umar
Kâkülüñden kim kabûl itmez anı dîvâneler
Bezm-i dünyâdan garaz şem‘-i cemâl-i yârdur
Tâ ki ol şevk ile diller olalar pervâneler
İtme ısgâ ‘ışk destânından özge kıssayı
Ey Refîkî gerçi çokdur dünyede efsâneler

In English

1. O preacher, “may the taverns burn in flames, let me see it” (so you say); yet the goblets shake the house of piety as if a cannonball had struck it.

2. O Sufi, I do not know what to do; the shouts of the drunkards do not let the advisor’s words enter my ear.

3. O fairy, how can a sane man hope for composure of mind (“cem‘iyyet”) from your forelock, when even madmen will not accept it from there?

4. The purpose of the world’s banquet is the candle of the beloved’s beauty, so that hearts may become moths with that longing.

5. Refîkî, give ear to no story but the epic of love, though the world is full of tales.

Literary and Historical Commentary

A Goblet like a Cannonball

The simile “tûb tokınmış gibi” in the first couplet ties the ghazal to the world of the sixteenth century. A “tûb” is a cannon, a firearm; the goblets shake the house of piety like a fortress wall hit by a cannonball. Siege and bombardment were scenes familiar to an Ottoman reader, and Refîkî sets this scene inside the quarrel between ascetic and reveller. The first line of the opening couplet can be read in two ways. “Göreyin odlara yansun vâ‘izâ mey-hâneler” is a formula of imprecation; either the preacher’s wish is being quoted mockingly (you say, let the taverns burn), or the poet himself wishes for the burning. Since the second line speaks of the power of the goblets, the first reading suits the couplet as a whole better.

In the couplets that follow, the quarrel moves to the ear and to sound. The reveller’s excuse to the Sufi and the advisor is that the shouts of the drunkards do not let the words of advice enter his ear. The third couplet sets the dishevelled forelock against the composed heart (“cem‘iyyet-i hâtır”): the forelock itself is in disarray, no peace can be hoped from it, and even madmen will not accept that. The world, in the fourth couplet, is a gathering and the beloved’s beauty its candle. The pen-name couplet weighs “destân” (epic) against “efsâne” (tale); the world has many stories, but the one worth hearing is the epic of love.

The Models of Kemalpaşazâde and Revânî

In the Mecma‘u’n-Nezâ’ir the model of this ghazal belongs to Kemalpaşazâde: “Şol kadar ma‘mûr olur ‘îd olıcak mey-hâneler / Elden ayak basmaga yir mi bulur peymâneler.” In the Pervâne copy the poem heading the same rhyme opens instead with Revânî’s line “Rūz-i ‘īd oldı yine güm güm öter mey-ḫāneler”. The Pervâne assigns to Refîkî the ghazal that the Mecma‘ gives as Kemalpaşazâde’s model; this problem of attribution is discussed in Ghazal 61. Refîkî’s other nazire on the same model is Ghazal 16. The two copies differ little: the Pervâne reads “n’eylesem” in the second couplet and “nite” in the third.

Bibliography

Official sources

Online sources