Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilün (remel); the edition places the poem in the muzâri‘ section

Kevkeb-i bahtum mukârin oldı beñzer ay ile
Ki‿âşinâ oldum bugün bir mâh-ı mihr-efzâ-y-ile
Hûn-ı dil başumdan aşdı gonçeveş ey lâle-ruh
Sünbülüñ el bir edelden nergis-i şehlâ-y-ile
Zerrece fehm idemez mihr-i ruhuñ mâhiyyetin
Tab‘-ı erbâb-ı hıred fikr-i felek-sîmâ-y-ile
Bir dem olmaz dil sevâd-ı zülf-i dil-berden halâs
Âh kim ‘ömrüm geçiserdür kurı sevdâ-y-ile
Nâr-ı hicrân-ı turunc-gabgab u âsîb ü gamum
Geçüriserler Refîkî ‘ömrüñi eyvâ-y-ile

In English

1. The star of my fortune must have come into conjunction with the moon, for today I have made the acquaintance of a moon that increases love.

2. O tulip-cheeked one, since your hyacinth (your tress) joined hands with the dark-eyed narcissus (your eye), the blood of my heart has risen over my head like a bud.

3. The nature of the wise, for all its sky-high thought, cannot grasp even a mote of the essence of your sun-cheek.

4. Not for a moment is the heart free of the blackness of the beloved’s tress; alas, my life will pass in empty passion.

5. Refîkî, the fire (pomegranate) of separation from the one with an orange-round chin, calamity and my grief will make you spend your life crying “alas” (quince).

Literary and Historical Commentary

A Basket of Fruit

Pomegranate, orange, apple and quince lie hidden in the complaint of the last couplet. “Nâr” is both fire and pomegranate, “turunc-gabgab” a chin round like a bitter orange, “âsîb” means calamity and contains the Persian word “sîb”, apple; and the last word “eyvâ” evokes both the cry “eyvah” (alas) and the quince, “ayva”. The fire of separation, calamity and grief will make the lover spend his life crying “alas”; yet the same line lines up a pomegranate, an orange, an apple and a quince. Word games of this kind draw on the possibilities of the old script, in which one spelling could be read in different ways.

The opening couplet uses the language of the sky: for the star of fortune to be “mukârin” with the moon, that is in conjunction, was an auspicious state according to the astrologers; on that day the lover has made the acquaintance of a “moon”, the beloved. In couplet two the hyacinth stands for the tress, the narcissus for the eye; when the two “join hands”, that is unite and conspire, the blood of the heart rises over the lover’s head as if overflowing a bud. In the fourth couplet “sevâd” (blackness) and “sevdâ” (both black bile and passion) come from the same root; the blackness of the tress is the reason the lover spends his life in empty passion.

Another Metre on Necâtî’s Model

In the Mecma‘ Necâtî’s ghazal “Tâ kim saçuñ girihlerin açduñ sabâ-y-ile / ‘Ömrin uzatduñ ehl-i dilüñ hoş hevâ-y-ile” is the model of this poem, and the series stands in the section of the muzâri‘ metre. Refîkî’s ghazal, however, is written in the remel metre; what it shares is the redif “-â-y-ile”. As with Ghazal 32, one sees here that the anthology brought poems together by shared redif and rhyme more than by metre. The ghazal is not found in Pervâne’s compilation.

Bibliography

Online sources