Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Ben vatandan ayru dil senden cüdâ hâlüm ‘acîb
Düşdi gülşen gûşesinden dûr gûyâ ‘andelîb
Kıl nazar âyîneye gör kim ne zîbâ çihresin
Lîk şart it olmayasın ehl-i dîdâra rakîb
Derd-i ‘ışkuñ şol kadar itdi beni zâr u nizâr
Sohbetüm ma‘lûm olur ger olmayasın sen tabîb
Dir imişsin kim işigümden rakîb olsun ba‘îd
Kâşkî olaydı ol devlet müyesser ‘an-karîb
Gam yime itdiyse yâruñ gayra lutf u saña kahr
Hamdü li’llâh olmaduñ sen de Refîkî bî-nasîb

In English

1. I am far from my homeland, my heart far from you; my state is strange, as if a nightingale had fallen far from the corner of the rose garden.

2. Look in the mirror and see how lovely your face is; but promise that you will not become a rival to those who long to see you.

3. The pain of your love has made me so wailing and so wasted that, even were you no physician, my state would be plain as soon as I spoke.

4. You say, they tell me, “let the rival be far from my threshold”; would that this fortune were granted very soon.

5. Refîkî, do not grieve if the beloved showed kindness to another and wrath to you; thank God, you too were not left without a share.

Literary and Historical Commentary

A Nightingale Far from the Rose Garden

The ghazal opens by setting two separations side by side: the poet is apart from his homeland, his heart apart from the beloved. This double exile is joined in a single picture by the simile of a nightingale fallen far from the corner of the rose garden. Refîkî is known to have come from Amasya and to have spent most of his life as a scribe in Edirne and Istanbul; but the poem names no place and holds no clue that would carry the word “vatan” beyond its general sense here. That his second nazire to Ulvî (Ghazal 7) also dwells on exile through the rhyme “garîb” suggests that the theme was chosen deliberately for this pair of nazires.

The second couplet is a graceful warning. The beloved may look in the mirror and see his own beauty, but he must not fall in love with himself and so become the rival of those who wish to see him. Line two of the third couplet is obscure; “sohbetüm ma‘lûm olur” can be taken to mean that the lover’s state would come to light the moment he spoke, though other readings are possible. The fourth couplet awaits the removal of the rival from the threshold as a “devlet”, a gift of fortune; “ba‘îd” (far) and “karîb” (near) answer each other in the rhyme. The closing couplet, which carries the pen name, counts even wrath as a share: a rebuke from the beloved is better than no attention at all.

Ulvî’s Model

Nazmî placed this ghazal with the answers to Ulvî’s poem opening “Zülfüñi bâd-ı sabâ sinüñ çözeli ey habîb / ‘Itr ile ‘âlem dimâgını mu‘attar kıldı tîb”. The tress loosened by the breeze and the scent spread over the world in the model give way in Refîkî to longing for home and jealousy of the rival. The poem has no counterpart in Pervâne Bey’s collection; in the Mecma‘ it is followed, under the heading “Velehû”, by a second ghazal on the same model.

Bibliography

Online sources