Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Derd-i ‘ışkuñla etibbâ bulmadı dermân aña
Görmedi sıhhat yüzin irişmeyince ân aña
Gâyet-i ‘ışkuñ hemân öldürmek imiş hecr ile
Çün bulınmaz buña gâyet nitekim pâyân aña
Şöyle hayrân oldı dil şevk-i hat-ı sebzüñle kim
Görüben halk-ı cihân oldı kamu hayrân aña
Sâkiyâ sâgar lebüñ öpdüginüñ vechi bu kim
Bir iki dem yüz görüpdür gerdiş-i devrân aña
‘Ömr bâgında Refîkî gam degül gül dirmese
Kanlu peykânuñ yiter çün gonçe-i handân aña

In English

1. Physicians found no remedy for the pain of your love; that heart saw no face of health until the “ân” reached it (the beloved’s indefinable charm; also “moment”, the final hour).

2. The utmost end of your love, it seems, is simply to kill by separation; for no end is found to it, just as it has no limit.

3. The heart was so bewildered with longing for the fresh down on your cheek that all the people of the world, seeing it, were bewildered at it in turn.

4. O cupbearer, the reason the goblet kisses your lip is this: the turning of fortune (and the round of the cup at the gathering) has shown it favour for a moment or two.

5. Refîkî, it is no grief if he picks no rose in the garden of life; your bloodied arrowhead is enough for him as a laughing bud.

Literary and Historical Commentary

A Bud from an Arrowhead

The most memorable image of the ghazal comes in its final couplet: the arrowhead lodged in the lover’s body and reddened with blood takes the place of the rose he could not pick in the garden of life, and even becomes “a laughing bud” for him. The likeness between arrowhead and bud is familiar in Ottoman poetry; both are pointed, closed and red. Refîkî turns the likeness into a consolation: failing to pick a rose is no loss, since the arrow shot by the beloved has already opened like one. The adjective “handân” (laughing) joins the opening of the bud and the gaping of the wound in a single word.

The word “ân” in the first couplet can be read in two ways. In one sense it is the smallest particle of time; the line then says that the heart will recover only when its last moment comes, that is, in death. In its other sense “ân” is that indefinable attraction in beauty; in this reading the heart finds no cure until the beloved’s nameless charm reaches it. The second couplet carries the same thought through the “gâyet” (utmost end) and “pâyân” (limit) of love: for a love without end, the only destination is the killing of separation. The “gerdiş-i devrân” of the fourth couplet also faces two ways, meaning both the turning of the heavens and the round of the cup passed from hand to hand at a gathering. The goblet’s meeting with the lip is put down to this round showing it favour for a short while.

On a Ground Set by Ahmed Paşa

The poem appears in Edirneli Nazmî’s Mecma‘u’n-Nezâ’ir among the nazires written to Ahmed Paşa’s ghazal opening “Yakdı çeşmüm ‘ışk odın didi dile gir yan aña / Âh kim rahm itmedi bu dîde-i giryân aña”. The redif (“aña”) and the “-ân” rhyme are taken unchanged from the model. Where Ahmed Paşa sets the weeping eye talking with the fire of love, Refîkî builds his ghazal on the physician, the cure and the wound; the shared redif lets the two poets place entirely different matter in the same mould. Pervâne Bey’s compilation does not include it.

Bibliography

Online sources