Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Leblerüñ zevkini çeşmümde unutmaz merdümek
Zâyi‘ itmez dûstum insân olan hakk-ı nemek
Menzil almakdan kalurdı gün-be-gün ey mâh-rû
Dûd-ı âhumdan ‘asâ idinmese yiri felek
Vaslın isterseñ ayagı topragın tâc eyle kim
Bir gedâ şâh olmaga başında gey devlet gerek
Beñler olmaga dehânuñ üzre cânâ sır bu kim
Nokta korlar[dı] mahalde zerrece olsaydı şek
Kıymetin dil nakdinüñ göñüldür iden âşkâr
Kim ‘ayâr eylerdi kalbi olmasa seng-i mehek
Gam degül dâm-ı belâda murg-ı dil pâ-bend ise
Tek safâ bâgında sen her lahza keklik gibi sek
Behrmend olmak dilerseñ hırmen-i maksûddan
Ey Refîkî murg-ı dilde [gel] vefâ tohmını ek

In English

1. The pupil of my eye (the “little man”) does not forget the taste of your lips; my friend, one who is human does not waste the right of bread and salt.

2. O moon-faced one, the sky (in the Pervâne: the old sky) would fall behind day by day in covering its stages, had it not taken a staff from the smoke of my sighs.

3. If you want union with him, make the dust of his foot your crown; for a beggar to become a king there must be great fortune (the bird of fortune) upon his head.

4. Beloved, the secret of the moles above your mouth is this: had there been a mote of doubt, they would have set a dot there.

5. It is (your) heart that reveals the worth of the coin of the heart; were there no touchstone, who would assay the “kalb” (both counterfeit coin and heart)?

6. No matter if the bird of the heart is caught by the foot in the snare of calamity; only you go skipping like a partridge every moment in the garden of delight.

7. Refîkî, if you wish to have a share of the harvest of desire, sow the seed of fidelity in the bird of the heart (in the Pervâne: in the field of the heart).

Literary and Historical Commentary

The Touchstone

The fifth couplet takes the reader into a money-changer’s shop. The fineness of a coin is tested by rubbing it on a touchstone, and a counterfeit coin is called “kalb”. Refîkî brings together the two senses of this word, false money and heart: the worth of the lover’s heart-coin comes to light through the beloved’s heart, because that heart is of stone, and without a stone no one could assay the “kalb”. In this image the beloved’s hard heart ceases to be a flaw and becomes a measuring instrument. The Pervâne reading “göñlüñdür” (your heart) shows plainly that this heart belongs to the beloved.

The opening couplet also rests on a pair of words. “Merdümek” means the eye’s pupil, and literally “little man”; the “insân” of the second line likewise means both human and pupil. The pupil does not forget the taste of the beloved’s lips, because whoever is human knows the right of bread and salt, the “hakk-ı nemek”; in the tradition the lip is both sweet and salty. The fourth couplet draws on the habits of writing: the beloved’s mouth is so small that its very existence is doubted. The moles above it are like the dots placed over doubtful spots. This reading of the couplet is not certain, but the likeness between mole and dot is very common in Ottoman poetry. In the sixth couplet the beloved is like a partridge walking with a skip; likening a slow, coquettish gait to the partridge is an old comparison.

Revânî and Vefâyî the Chancellor

The model Nazmî names is a poem by Revânî: “Didüm ey meh beni hecrüñde çog aglatdı felek / Didi nâz ile geçen yagmura tutma kepenek.” At the head of the same rhyme the Pervâne Bey Mecmuası places the ghazal “Bir naẓarda ‘aḳl ü ṣabrum aldı gitdi ol melek” by Vefâyî, named in the heading as the chancellor (nişancı) of Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror. Pervâne’s five-couplet version has neither the mole-and-dot couplet nor the partridge. Two weak spots in the Mecma‘ text are mended by the Pervâne: in the second couplet “pīr-i felek” (the old sky, an aged man leaning on a staff) for “yiri felek”, and in the last couplet “mezra‘-i dilde” (in the field of the heart) for “murg-ı dilde”. The verb of sowing calls for the second reading.

Bibliography

Online sources