Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Yâra didüm kıl hazer itdükçe âh-ı sûznâk
Didi şem‘-i mâha yok durur sabâdan hîç bâk
Cân virürse baña şemşîrüñ ne tañ kim ‘âşıka
Yâr elinden âb-ı hayvân görinür tîg-ı helâk
Kanlu peykânuñ tenümden baş götürse sanuram
Gonçe-i rengîni eyler terbiyet gûyâ ki hâk
İsterem gerd-i rehüñden dil ola mugber ki‿olur
Sûret-i matlûb zâhir olıcak âyîne pâk
Ol kemân-ebrû döker tîr-i müjeyle rahm idüp
Câme-i ten olsa tîgından Refîkî çâk çâk

In English

1. I told the beloved, “Beware whenever I heave my burning sigh”; he said, “The candle of the moon has no fear at all of the morning breeze.”

2. No wonder if your sword gives me life; for to the lover the deadly blade in the beloved’s hand seems the water of life.

3. If your bloody arrowhead raises its head from my body, I think the earth is nurturing a colourful bud.

4. I want my heart to be dusty with the dust of your road; for when the mirror is clean the image one seeks appears.

5. Refîkî, if the garment of my body is torn to shreds by his sword, that bow-browed one, taking pity, stitches it with the arrow of his lashes (the edition reads “döker”, pours).

Literary and Historical Commentary

The Water of the Sword

The “âb”, the water, of a sword is the sheen of its steel, and the second couplet moves between the two senses of the word. In Ottoman poetry a good sword is called “âbdâr”, watered. Refîkî turns this water into “âb-ı hayvân”, the water of life: the deadly sword in the beloved’s hand offers the lover not death but the water of immortality. The opening couplet carries a similar reversal. The lover speaks of his sigh burning the beloved; the beloved laughs at him, saying that the candle of the moon has no fear of the morning wind. The moon is a candle that cannot be put out, and the lover’s sigh cannot make it flicker.

The third couplet ties the comparison of arrowhead and bud, seen in other poems of Refîkî’s (Ghazal 3), to an image of earth: the bloody arrowhead showing from the body is a colourful bud raised by the soil. The fourth couplet begins with a wish that looks contradictory: the lover wants his heart to be dusty, because the image appears when the mirror is clean. The contradiction dissolves when one recalls that mirrors were once polished with ash and dust; the dust of the beloved’s road does not soil the mirror of the heart but burnishes it. The verb of the last couplet is printed “döker” (pours) in the Mecma‘ text. In Arabic script “döker” and “diker” (stitches) are written alike, and the context calls for the second: the bow-browed beloved stitches with the arrows of his lashes the garment of the body that he has torn with his sword. The translation follows this reading.

The Model of Resmî the Painter

Both anthologies tie the ghazal to Resmî’s model: “Her kaçan cân kasdına gamzeñ çeker tîg-ı helâk / Çagrışur her gûşede dil-hasteler rûhı fidâk.” The Pervâne Bey Mecmuası introduces Resmî in the heading of the model as a man of Bursa and a painter. Refîkî carries the model’s phrase “tîg-ı helâk” (the deadly blade) unchanged to the end of his second couplet. In the Pervâne copy the third and fourth couplets change places; there the mirror couplet begins “İsterem kim dergehüñden dil ola muġber”, and in the last couplet “eger” is read for “döker”.

Bibliography

Online sources