Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Rûşen oldı şem‘ çün gelsün beri pervâneler
Tâ ki ol şevki görüp odlara düşüp yanalar
Hâli olma ‘ışkdan isterseñ âbâd olmagı
Genc ile ma‘mûr olur çün ey göñül vîrâneler
Giregör şol bezme kim anda müdâm olmış ola
Dâne-i tesbîh nukl u tâclar peymâneler
Zâhidâ ‘arz eyleme misvâk u tesbîhüñ ki hîç
Ehl-i ‘ışkuñ gûşına girmez kurı efsâneler
Cân nedür kim anı virmekden döner erbâb-ı ‘ışk
Hâssa şol meclisde kim raksa gire cânâneler
Vaz gelmek bâdeden âsân idi ey hem-nişîn
Sımayaydı tevbe câmın gözleri mestâneler
‘Akl u dânişden sakın ‘ışkuñ harîmin ey Refîk
Meclis-i ünse ne lâyıkdur gire bîgâneler

In English

1. The candle is lit; let the moths come here, so that, seeing that longing, they may fall into the flames and burn.

2. If you wish to flourish, do not be empty of love; for ruins, O heart, are made prosperous by treasure.

3. Enter that gathering where the beads of the rosary have become sweetmeats and the dervish caps goblets.

4. O ascetic, do not keep displaying your toothstick and your rosary; dry tales never enter the ears of the people of love.

5. What is the soul, that the lords of love should shrink from giving it, above all in a gathering where the beloveds join the dance?

6. O companion, giving up wine would have been easy, had not those with drunken eyes broken the cup of repentance.

7. O Refîk, guard the sanctuary of love from reason and learning; how is it fitting that strangers enter the gathering of intimacy?

Literary and Historical Commentary

Goblets from Caps, Sweetmeats from Rosaries

Rosary beads have become sweetmeats and dervish caps goblets: the third couplet turns the objects of piety, one by one, into the furniture of a drinking party. Turning a dervish cap upside down and holding it like a cup is a sharp example of the jokes about religious garb found in the poetry of the reveller. The fourth couplet goes the same way: the ascetic’s toothstick and rosary are not things to show the people of love, for whom all of it is “dry tales”. The word “câm” of the sixth couplet, meaning both cup and glass, is bound to “repentance”; repentance is a cup, and the drunken-eyed have broken it. The opening couplet works the candle and the moth, the second the belief that treasure lies in ruins; love lays the heart waste, but treasure is found only in ruins.

The Pen Name Refîk

Köksal’s edition gives this poem under the heading “Nazîre-i Refîk” and records Refîk as a separate name in its index of poets. Pervâne Bey’s collection heads the same ghazal “Naẓīre-i Refīḳī”. The closing address “ey Refîk” is found in other poems where Refîkî shortened his pen name for the metre; in three ghazals given under Refîkî’s name in the Mecma‘ (Ghazals 32, 49 and 54) the pen name takes the form “Refîk”. It is therefore highly probable that the poem is Refîkî’s, but the different heading in the Mecma‘ should be recorded. The rhyme of the opening couplet also catches the eye: “pervâneler” and “yanalar” do not form a full rhyme; the two copies agree here.

The ghazal stands among the nazires to the model by Kemalpaşazâde, “Şol kadar ma‘mûr olur ‘îd olıcak mey-hâneler”, and can be read together with Refîkî’s other poem on the same model (Ghazal 15). Kemalpaşazâde’s model ghazal ends with the address “ey refîk” (O friend); Refîkî’s use of the same address as his own pen name may be a delicate nod to the model. The third and fourth couplets, with the caps, the rosary and the toothstick, are absent from the Pervâne, where the poem has five couplets. The Pervâne ties the model instead to Revânî’s feast-day ghazal mentioned under Ghazal 15.

Bibliography

Online sources