Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilün (remel-i mahbûn); the edition places the poem in the muzâri‘ section

Beli yâdına dilâ kâni‘ ol[a] fârig-i bâl
Yârdan saña nasîb olmadı çün gayr-ı hayâl
Bir varak kâgıd ile yâr beni yâd itmez
Kanlar aglarsam eger şâm u seher hâme-misâl
Cennet-i kûyuña uçmaga bulımazdı mecâl
Dile peykânuñ eger olmasa idi ter ü bâl
Bükeliden yâr ‘ışkı baña zülfüñdür
İtmege lâm-elif kâmetümi oldur dâl
Kâkülüñden ki nümâyân olur ebrûñ ey meh
Sanasın ebr-i siyehden görinür şekl-i hilâl
Ruhlaruñ şevkile rengîn kelimât itmek olur
Dile hâl-i siyehüñ gibi müjeñ geçmese al
Düşeli zülf ü ruhuñ fikrine ey dûst Refîk
Nice geçdügini fehm itmez olupdur meh ü sâl

In English

1. O heart, be content with the memory of the beloved’s waist and be at ease; for nothing but fancy has fallen to your share from the beloved.

2. Though I weep blood evening and morning like a pen, the beloved does not remember me with so much as a leaf of paper.

3. Were your arrowhead not feathers and wings to the heart (the edition prints “ter ü bâl”), it would find no strength to fly to the paradise of your street.

4. Ever since love of the beloved bent me, (the cause) is your tress; it is that which turns my lâm-alif stature into a dâl (the line is incomplete and obscure).

5. O moon, as your brow shows from beneath your forelock, you would think the shape of the crescent appears from a black cloud.

6. With longing for your cheeks one could speak in colourful words, were your lashes, like your black mole, not to pass a trick upon the heart.

7. O friend, ever since Refîk fell to thinking of your tress and cheek, he no longer grasps how the months and years go by.

Literary and Historical Commentary

A Calendar where Night and Day Mingle

Tress as night and cheek as day is a well-known pairing; the last couplet, where Refîkî names himself, ties it to the sense of time. For the lover lost in thought of tress and cheek, night and day run together and he can no longer tell how “month and year” pass. The fifth couplet also carries an event in the sky: the brow showing from beneath the forelock is the crescent emerging from behind a black cloud. The kinship in sound between “ebrû” (brow) and “ebr” (cloud) works by itself in the couplet. The metre has clipped the name here to “Refîk”, a short form the poet turns to in other ghazals as well.

The second couplet gives an image from the world of the pen: the pen sheds ink, and the lover, like a pen, weeps blood evening and morning, but the beloved does not answer him with so much as a leaf of paper, a letter. In the third couplet the arrowhead becomes the wing of the heart’s bird; the same conceit occurs in the third couplet of Ghazal 30. The edition’s “ter ü bâl” should probably be read “per ü bâl” (feathers and wings). Line one of the fourth couplet does not fit the metre; it appears that a few syllables may have dropped out, and the couplet remains obscure. The comparison of the letter lâm-alif with the letter dâl recalls other couplets in which Refîkî works with the shapes of letters.

Metre and Model

Nazmî files this nazire in the section of the muzâri‘ metre, under Ahmedî’s model opening with the couplet “Nakşa getüreyin dise bu sûreti hayâl / Bu vehm aña tasavvur-ı bâtıl durur hayâl”. Refîkî’s lines, however, follow the remel-i mahbûn pattern; this suggests that Nazmî may have grouped the poems by their shared rhyme alone. The rhyme is the same as in the model (“-âl”), but Ahmedî’s redif “hayâl” survives in Refîkî only as a rhyme word in the opening couplet. The poem has come down only in the Mecma‘.

Bibliography

Online sources