Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilün (remel-i mahbûn)

Bir gice mihr-i ruḫuñ vaṣfın iderken ḳamere
Ṭāḳatin ṭāḳ idüp ḳāmeti döndi kemere
Reşkden bedr-i münīrini hilāl eyledi rāst
Ol s̱emer naḫline baḳ bār-i ġam oldı s̱emere
Ey niçe giceler olmak gerek ey dil bīdār
Tā senüñ şām-i ġamuñ irişe bir dem seḥere
Aġzınuñ dadını bilmez begüm Allāh bilür
Beñzeden kimse senüñ ḳāmetüñi ney-şekere
Ḫaṭ mıdur yār ruḫı dā’iresinde görinen
Yoḫsa īmāna mı geldi bir iki ḳaç kefere
Gerd-i rāhuñ var iken sürme görinmez gözine
Maḫfī olmaya hüner merdüm-i ṣāḥib-naẓara
Olımaz çeşm-i Refīḳī dür-i dendānuñsuz
İhtiyācı yoġ iken baḥr-i muḥītüñ gühere

In English

1. One night, as I described the sun of your cheek to the moon, the moon’s strength gave out and its stature bent into a belt (a crescent).

2. From envy it truly turned its shining full moon into a crescent; look at that fruit tree: the burden of grief has become its fruit.

3. O heart, how many nights you must stay awake, so that the evening of your grief may reach a dawn for a moment.

4. My lord, God knows, whoever likens your stature to the sugar cane does not know the taste of your mouth.

5. Is it the down that appears in the circle of the beloved’s cheek, or have a few infidels come to the faith?

6. When the dust of your road is there, kohl does not show in his eye; merit does not stay hidden from the discerning pupil (man).

7. Refîkî’s eye cannot be without the pearls of your teeth, though the encircling ocean has no need of pearls.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Infidels Who Came to the Faith

A conceit of the tradition takes an unexpected turn in the fifth couplet. The down appearing on the beloved’s cheek is often likened in Ottoman poetry to the letters of the Qur’an, to “hat”, script; Refîkî asks the question from another angle: is it the down that appears in the circle of the cheek, or have a few infidels come to the faith? The dark hairs are likened to infidels, the circle of the cheek to the bounds of Islam; the settling of the down on the face is like infidels coming to the faith and entering that circle. The couplet thus tells of the change of beauty over time through a scene of conversion.

The opening couplet works the envy of the moon and the sun: as the lover describes the sun of the cheek to the moon, the moon’s strength (“ṭāḳat”) becomes “ṭāḳ”, exhausted; the pun between “ṭāḳat” and “ṭāḳ” prepares the moon’s loss of strength and its turning into a crescent, a “kemer” (belt, arch). “Ḳamer” (moon) and “kemer” also echo each other in the rhyme. The second line of the second couplet is obscure; the translation gives a reading in which the burden of grief is the fruit of a tree. The fourth couplet rejects the comparison with sugar cane: whoever likens the beloved’s stature to sugar does not know the taste of his mouth, for the true sweetness lies in the mouth. In the sixth couplet “merdüm” is again both the eye’s pupil and a human being; Refîkî uses this double sense in other ghazals too (Ghazals 4, 27, 35). Where the pen name appears, the eye filled with tears is an ocean; though the ocean is rich in pearls, the lover’s eye needs the pearls of the beloved’s teeth.

The Model of Nizâmî of Konya

The ghazal survives only in the Pervâne Bey Mecmuası, where it stands in the group answering the ghazal of Nizâmî Çelebi of Konya opening “Yüzidür nükte atan ḥüsn ile şems ü ḳamere / Sözidür ṭa‘ne iden ṭu‘m ile şehd ü şekere”. Refîkî uses the model’s rhyme words “ḳamere” and “şekere” again in his own ghazal. The metre, as shown in the anthology’s section heading, is remel-i mahbûn. No counterpart to this poem has been found in Edirneli Nazmî’s anthology.

Bibliography

Online sources