Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Meyl-i çerhüñ itdi sâkî hâk ile yeksân beni
Gör ne al ile tutup hak eyledi devrân beni
Çok sözüm vardur benüm anuñla irürsem eger
Açılup her bezmde çün söylemiş dîvân beni
Ol hilâl-ebrûyı benden muttasıl dûr itmesün
İstemez çün kim felek peyveste ser-gerdân beni
Ney kulak tutmazdı hecrüñde vücûdum var disem
Ger aña tuydurmayaydı nâle vü efgân beni
Câna mihnet kâsesin yir yir virür devrân müdâm
Ey Refîkî korkaram bir gün tutar ol kan beni

In English

1. O cupbearer, the inclination of the sky (in the Pervâne: my longing for a sip from you) has levelled me with the dust; see with what trick fortune caught me and made me earth.

2. I have much to say to him if I reach him; for in every gathering the divan has been opened and has spoken of me (has recited my words).

3. Let him not keep that crescent-browed one always far from me; for the sky wants me not joined to him but ever giddy-headed.

4. Were I to say “I exist” in separation from you, not even the reed would lend an ear, had not moaning and lament made me heard by it.

5. Fortune keeps offering the soul the cup of affliction here and there; O Refîkî, I fear that blood will one day catch up with me.

Literary and Historical Commentary

A Divan Opened at the Gathering

A hint about the poet’s own poetry seems to lie in the second couplet. The lover has much to say to the beloved, because “in every gathering the divan has been opened” and has spoken of him. “Dîvân” is both a council and the book in which a poet gathers his poems; a divan opened and read at gatherings has told everyone the poet’s words. Latîfî records that Refîkî had a divan; but that divan is not known today; his poems remain only in the biographical anthologies and the nazire collections (for the poet’s life see Refîkî Ali Çelebi (İbrîzâde)). The couplet can therefore be read as a reminder, in the poet’s own words, that a lost divan was once read at gatherings; but this is an interpretation drawn from the two senses of the word.

The rest of the ghazal tells of fortune’s cruelty. In the opening couplet the lover has been levelled with the dust; in the Mecma‘ text the cause is “meyl-i çerh”, the inclination of the sky, in the Pervâne “meyl-i cür‘añ”, the sip offered by the cupbearer. Since the cupbearer is addressed, the Pervâne reading sits better in the couplet. The word “peyveste” (joined) in the third couplet also alludes to joined eyebrows: the sky wants the lover not joined to the beloved but always giddy. By the fourth couplet the lover has wasted away so much that he can make his existence known only through his moaning; not even the reed believes him. In the last couplet “kan tutmak” is the idiom for blood once shed catching up with a man.

The Models of Vasfî and Tâcîzâde

In the Mecma‘u’n-Nezâ’ir Vasfî’s ghazal “Bir meh-i nâ-mihr içün çerh itdi ser-gerdân beni / Gör nenüñ gibi gün içün saklamış devrân beni” heads the group in which this one stands; Refîkî left a second ghazal on this model (Ghazal 54). The Pervâne Bey Mecmuası names as the model in the same redif the ghazal “Öldürür āḫir belālarla ġam-i hicrān beni” by Tâcîzâde Câfer Çelebi of Amasya. The last couplet is different in the Pervâne: “Cāna miḥnet kāsesin pür pür virür miḥnet müdām / Ey Refīḳī öldüriser sāḳī-i hicrān beni” (the cupbearer of separation will kill me).

Bibliography

Official sources

Books

Online sources