Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Dir gören ehl-i nazar agyâr bezminde seni
Şâh-ı güldür hârdan bir havludur pîreheni
Dâne-i hâlüñ görüp kendüm ferâmûş eyledüm
Yile vardı âh kim bir demde ‘aklum hırmeni
Ne gelür elden çün itmiş halk iden şâdî vü gam
Dil-ber-i ra‘nâ seni vü ‘âşık-ı şeydâ meni
Pâkdür dirdüm güle ey bülbül-i dil olmasa
Gûşe-i bâg içre her bir hâr elinde dâmeni
Sanma encümdür görinen gökde belki subha dek
Gözlerin yumdurmadı her şeb Refîk’üñ şîveni

In English

1. The man of insight who sees you in the rivals’ gathering says: “He is a branch of roses; his shirt is a fence of thorns.”

2. Seeing the grain of your mole I forgot myself; alas, the harvest of my reason went to the wind in a moment.

3. What can one do, since he who created joy and grief created you a lovely beloved and me a frenzied lover?

4. O nightingale of the heart, I would call the rose pure, were its skirt not in the hand of every thorn in the corner of the garden.

5. Do not take what appears in the sky for stars; Refîk’s wailing has kept the sky from closing its eyes every night until dawn.

Literary and Historical Commentary

The Sleepless Eyes of the Sky

The last couplet offers a new account of the stars. What appears in the sky is not stars; they are the open eyes of the sky, which cannot sleep until dawn because of the lover’s wailing. The likeness between eyes that cannot close and stars shining on the face of the sky turns the lover’s voice into a cosmic sleeplessness. The pen name is shortened here to “Refîk’üñ”; the Pervâne copy reads “Refīḳī” at the same point. Refîkî is seen to use this short form in other ghazals in the Mecma‘ too (Ghazals 16, 32, 54).

The first couplets of the ghazal move through images of garden and harvest. The beloved sitting among the rivals resembles a branch of roses ringed by a fence of thorns; the word “havlı” means a garden fence or courtyard. Next the mole is a grain and reason a harvest; the lover who runs after the grain sees his harvest blown away by the wind. The word “hırmen” (harvest) from Ahmed Paşa’s model ghazal becomes a rhyme word again here. The third couplet takes refuge in fate: he who created joy and grief created one as beloved and the other as lover; the rhyme “seni” and “meni” carries the old Turkish form “men” used for “ben” (I). The rose of the fourth couplet cannot be counted pure, because its skirt is in the hand of every thorn; the thorns are the rivals.

Ahmed Paşa’s “Hırmen” Ghazal

In the Mecma‘ and the Pervâne alike the model is Ahmed Paşa’s ghazal “Cenneti berg-i heves tutar cemâlüñ gülşeni / Kâha saymaz dâne-i meh-tâbı hüsnüñ hırmeni”; the Pervâne ties the model to Veliyyüddînzâde Ahmed Paşa. The five couplets are the same in both texts; the Pervâne reads “ḥavlıdur pīrāheni” in the first couplet, “beni” in the third, “belki çerḫe” in the last.

Bibliography

Online sources