Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mefâ‘îlün mefâ‘îlün mefâ‘îlün mefâ‘îlün (hezec)

Nazar kıl hâline lutf it nigârâ çeşm-i giryânuñ
Ki‿anı seyl-âba virmişdür gam-ı serv-i hırâmânuñ
Çerâg-ı hüsne pervâne gibi bezm-i safâ içre
Görüp yandugumı göynür dili her şem‘-i sûzânuñ
Beni güldürmedüñ ey gevher-i sîr-âb dîdemden
Düşürdi nitekim dürler hayâl-i la‘l-i handânuñ
Yüzüñ şevkiyle âhumdan gice gün gibi rûşendür
Sanur halk-ı cihân anı egerçi mâh-ı tâbânuñ
Çemende vasf-ı hüsnüñden sabâ şerh eylemiş gûyâ
Ki düşmiş cânına âteş gül-i sad-berg-i bustânuñ
Cihânı pertevi hüsnüñ kılur her subh-dem rûşen
Meger kim matla‘-ı hurşîddür cânâ girîbânuñ
‘İlâc-ı merhemi añmaz Refîkî haste-dil hergiz
Hadeng-i gamzesi mecrûh idelden anı cânânuñ

In English

1. O beloved, look kindly on the state of the weeping eye; grief for the swaying cypress (for you) has given it over to floods.

2. Seeing me burn like a moth for the lamp of beauty in the gathering of delight, the heart of every burning candle is seared.

3. O lustrous pearl, you never made me laugh; just as the image of your laughing lip has made pearls (tears) fall from my eye.

4. Through longing for your face my sighs make the night bright as day; yet the people of the world take it for the light of the shining moon.

5. The morning breeze must have described your beauty in the meadow, for fire has fallen into the soul of the garden’s hundred-petalled rose.

6. The radiance of your beauty lights the world every dawn; beloved, perhaps your collar is the rising-place of the sun.

7. Ever since the beloved’s arrow-glance wounded him, Refîkî, sick at heart, never mentions remedy or ointment.

Literary and Historical Commentary

A Sun Rising from the Collar

The light that illumines the world every morning, says the sixth couplet, rises from the beloved’s collar, his “girîbân”. The collar frames the face and neck; the face rising from it is like the sun rising in the sky. The fourth couplet carries the same theme of light into the night: the lover’s sigh, through longing for the face, makes the night bright as day, but people take this brightness for the light of the moon. The link between sigh and fire is widespread in Ottoman poetry; Refîkî makes this fire visible as if it were a street lamp.

In the ghazal tears, fire and flowers turn into one another. In the first couplet the weeping eye has been given over to floods by grief for the swaying cypress. In the second the lover is the moth of the lamp of beauty, and even the candles that see him burning feel their hearts burn; the verb “göynür” expresses both burning and pity. The third couplet sets laughter against weeping: the beloved never made the lover laugh, while the image of his lip has made pearls, that is tears, fall from the lover’s eye. In the fifth couplet the morning wind has described the beloved’s beauty in the meadow, and the hundred-petalled rose, hearing it, has caught fire with jealousy. The pen-name couplet says that the lover wounded by the arrow of the glance seeks no cure; when the wound comes from the beloved, ointment is needless.

Şeyhî’s “Devrân” Ghazal

Şeyhî’s ghazal “Ne cân kim dil-beri vaslın müyesser kıldı devr anuñ / Hoş olsun vakti ‘âlemde ki zevkin sürdi devrânuñ” is the model for this nazire in both collections; the Pervâne heading counts Şeyhî “ḳudemādan”, among the poets of old. Refîkî keeps the model’s “-ânuñ” rhyme and moves it among eye, candle, lip, moon, rose and collar. The Pervâne lacks the third (laughing and weeping) and the sixth (collar and sun), leaving five couplets. In couplet one the Pervâne reads “raḥm it”, in the last “anı sen cānuñ”.

Bibliography

Online sources