Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Dûdlar kim zâhir olur sîne-i sad-çâkden
San buhâr-ı ‘arzdur yir yir belürür hâkden
Dikdi san‘atla şükûfe nahl-bend-i rûzgâr
Sanma encümdür görinen sîne-i eflâkden
Aglamazam tûtiyâ içün ki gerd-i râh-ı dûst
Bir nazar eksük degüldür dîde-i nemnâkden
Öldürürdi bini hecrüñ irmeseydüm vuslata
Zehr içün kânûn budur bulur şifâ tiryâkden
Yâra kâr itse ‘aceb midür Refîkî nâlişüñ
Her ne iş dirseñ gelür çün ‘âşık-ı bî-bâkden

In English

1. The smokes that appear from my breast, torn in a hundred places, look like the vapour of the earth rising here and there from the soil.

2. The festival-tree maker of time has planted flowers with skill; do not take what appears on the breast of the sky for stars.

3. I do not weep for want of kohl; for the dust of the friend’s road is never for a moment missing from my moist eye.

4. Had I not reached union, your separation would have killed me; for poison this is the rule: it finds its cure in theriac.

5. Refîkî, is it a wonder if your lament touches the beloved? For whatever deed you name comes from the fearless lover.

Literary and Historical Commentary

The Heavens as a Festival-Tree Maker

The festival-tree maker of Ottoman festivities is lifted into the sky in the second couplet. A “nahl-bend” was the master who prepared the “nahıl”, ornamental trees of wax and coloured paper carried in procession at weddings and circumcision festivals. Refîkî sees the heavens as such a master: the shining things in the sky are not stars but flowers skilfully planted by the festival-tree maker of time. The opening couplet also binds earth to sky: the smokes rising from the torn breast look like vapour coming out of the ground. The fire within the lover thus turns into a visible landscape, as vapour on the earth and as flowers in the sky.

The third and fourth couplets use images from the world of the eye and of medicine. Kohl is a remedy for the eye, but the lover does not weep for it, because the dust of the beloved’s road is already in his eye; in the tradition the dust of the road is the most precious kohl. In the fourth couplet separation is poison and union theriac; “kânûn” again evokes both rule and Avicenna’s book of medicine (compare Ghazal 21). The Mecma‘ readings “bini” and “Zehr içün” appear in the Pervâne as “beni” and “Zehr içen”; following the Pervâne, the second line means “the one who drinks poison finds his cure in theriac”. The closing couplet praises fearlessness in love: the fearless lover can do anything, and his lament touches the beloved too.

Kemalpaşazâde and Hilâlî

In Nazmî’s anthology the model of the ghazal is the ghazal of Kemalpaşazâde, “Zâhir oldı gün yüzüñ âyîne-i eflâkden / Gitdi eşküm şeb-nemi bu dîde-i nemnâkden”; Refîkî has one more ghazal on this model (Ghazal 41). Pervâne Bey names as the model in the same rhyme the ghazal of Hilâlî of Istanbul, “Cān virürsem ey göñül ol tīġ-i āteşnākden”. The five couplets are the same in both copies, except that in the Pervâne the kohl couplet has been moved to the end.

Bibliography

Online sources