Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

‘Işk zâlim yâr ser-keş derd çog u sabr az
Vay eger olmaya müşfik baña baht-ı kâr-sâz
‘Âşık-ı bî-çâre n’itsün çünki yâre hûy ola
Gâh hışm [u] gâh kîne [geh] kirişme gâh nâz
Saldı kudret kur‘asın şol dem ki kassâm-ı ezel
Hüsn erbâbına düşdi nâz u ‘uşşâka niyâz
Hurrem olsun dir iseñ hüsnüñ bahârın dâyimâ
Bir varak kâgıdla dâyim ‘âşıkuñ göñlini yaz
Pây-mâl olsa Refîkî gam degül mânend-i hâk
Tek cihân bâgında ol sen serv gibi ser-firâz

In English

1. Love is cruel, the beloved headstrong, pain abundant and patience scant; woe to me if fortune, which sets affairs in order, shows me no compassion.

2. What can the helpless lover do, when the beloved’s habit is now anger, now spite, now a languishing glance, now coquetry?

3. When the Distributor of pre-eternity cast the lot of fate, coquetry fell to the beautiful and supplication to the lovers.

4. If you want the spring of your beauty to stay joyful for ever, always “write” the lover’s heart with a leaf of paper (gladden it with a letter).

5. It is no grief if Refîkî is trodden underfoot like dust; only be you upright-headed like the cypress in the garden of the world.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Refîkî of Amasya

The Pervâne Bey Mecmuası gives this ghazal under the heading “Naẓīre-i Refīḳī-i Amāsiyyevī”. In two of Refîkî’s poems (this ghazal and Ghazal 24) the anthology names the poet with the nisba “of Amasya”. For a poet whom most biographical anthologies call a man of Amasya, while Kafzâde Fâizî makes him a native of Edirne, this record in a nazire anthology compiled in the middle of the sixteenth century is a witness close to his own time that supports the link with Amasya. Pervâne Bey is known to have compiled the anthology in 968 (1560-61), and its single copy is in the Topkapı Palace; the heading thus dates from about twenty-seven years after the poet’s death.

The Lot of Fate

The centre of thought in the ghazal is the third couplet. The Distributor of pre-eternity (“kassâm-ı ezel”) cast the lot of fate, and coquetry fell to the beautiful, supplication to the lovers. Setting “nâz” and “niyâz” side by side in the rhyme says that the roles of the two parties are unchangeable. The second couplet lists the beloved’s moods with the fourfold “gâh” (now): anger, spite, the languishing glance and coquetry follow one another. Spring, leaf and “yaz” are used together in the fourth couplet: if the spring of beauty is to stay joyful, a “varak kâgıd”, a letter, should be “written” to the lover’s heart. “Yaz” is both the imperative of the verb to write and the word for summer; the passage from spring to summer takes in the heart that the letter will gladden.

In Nazmî’s anthology the series to which the ghazal belongs is headed by Ahmed Paşa’s poem “Nâz ider ‘âşıklara nâz itmege ol serv-i nâz / Nâz hüsni râzıdur dîvâneye açsun mı râz”; the Pervâne also ties the model to Veliyyüddînzâde Ahmed Paşa. The repetition of “nâz” in the model echoes in the sharing of “nâz” and “niyâz” in Refîkî’s third couplet. Both copies have the same five couplets; in the last couplet the Pervâne reads “Tek cihānda ol hemānā serv gibi ser-firāz”.

Bibliography

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