Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mefâ‘îlün mefâ‘îlün mefâ‘îlün mefâ‘îlün (hezec)

Ne bir dem diñdi ey dil-ber firāḳuñdan gözüm yaşı
Ne ḫod bir laḥẓa oñuldı ġamuñdan baġrumuñ başı
Iraġ olalı ḳapuñdan ḥabībüm ḳıble ḥaḳḳiçün
Bulımazam ki yaṣdanam başum altında bir ṭaşı
Nedendür beni gördükçe ḫışmnāk olduġuñ böyle
Saña kim didi hey ḳıblem gözi üstindedür ḳaşı
Behiştüñ sidresin zāhid iñen ‘arż itme ‘uşşāḳa
İrişmez ḳadd-i dildāra göge irerse ger başı
Refīḳī naġme-i şi‘rüñ işidüp bülbül-i gūyā
Ne dirler gösterüp ḳıldı seḥer gülşende bir ṭaşı

In English

1. O heart-stealer, neither have my tears ceased for a moment because of your separation, nor has the wound of my breast healed for an instant from your grief.

2. My love, by the truth of the qibla, since I have been far from your door I cannot find even a stone to lay under my head as a pillow.

3. Why do you grow so angry whenever you see me? Hey, my qibla, who told you, “there is a brow above your eye”?

4. O ascetic, do not keep showing the lote-tree of paradise to the lovers; even if its head reaches the sky, it cannot reach the beloved’s stature.

5. Refîkî, hearing the melody of your poetry, the speaking nightingale at dawn in the rose garden… (the end of the line is obscure).

Literary and Historical Commentary

The Brow above the Eye

A Turkish idiom finds its way into the third couplet. Every time the beloved sees the lover he grows angry; the lover asks: “Saña kim didi hey ḳıblem gözi üstindedür ḳaşı?” Among the people, to say “there is a brow above your eye” means to find fault with someone for no reason, to look for a pretext and pick a quarrel. The lover is astonished to have such an offence laid at his door; but since “brow” and “eye” are words that describe the beloved’s beauty, the idiom turns into a witticism in the couplet. The address “ḳıble” also fits: in the tradition the brow is likened to the mihrab, that is to the qibla.

The second couplet answers the model directly. Necâtî’s opening couplet says “Ġamuñdan ḫaste olup dil ḳapuñda yaṣdanur ṭaşı”: the sick heart takes the stone at the beloved’s door for a pillow. Refîkî builds this image in reverse: since he has been far from the door he cannot find even a stone to lay under his head; even the stone of the door has been denied him. In the opening couplet the idiom “baġrumuñ başı” describes the wound of the breast. In the fourth couplet not even the lote-tree can reach the beloved’s stature. Line two of the pen-name couplet, “Ne dirler gösterüp ḳıldı seḥer gülşende bir ṭaşı”, yields no clear meaning; in the translation this part has been left blank rather than invented.

Necâtî’s Model

The ghazal has come down only in the Pervâne copy, where it stands among the nazires to Necâtî Beg’s hezec ghazal “Ġamuñdan ḫaste olup dil ḳapuñda yaṣdanur ṭaşı / Teraḥḥum ḳıl ki ‘uşşāḳuñ ḳatı yaṣduḳdadur başı”; the same series also includes the nazires of Mesîhî, İshak Çelebi, Kemalpaşazâde and Zâtî. Refîkî uses the model’s rhyme words “ṭaşı” and “başı” again in his second and fourth couplets.

Bibliography

Online sources