Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fâʿilâtün mefâʿilün feʿilün (metre identified by us)

Latîfî quotes six couplets from two stanzas together with the refrain couplet; the refrain is identical in Sehî and Beyânî, while Kınalızâde has "Bu cihân bir ʿaceb cihân oldı".

Câhile tev-emân ṣafâ vü sürûr
Ehl-i ʿirfâna derd ü ġam hem-zâd
Kâfir âsûde-dil ġam-ı nândan
Reh-rev-i dîn olan yürür bî-zâd
Bî-hünerler ġarîḳ-ı sîm ü ẕeheb
Müflis ü bî-nevâ yürür üstâd
Bâb-ı rüşvet gibi ulu dergâh
Ḥaḳ ḳapusı gibi açuḳ her gâh
Gerçi açuḳ veli ġanî olana
Anda müflislere ne ḳadr ü ne câh
Açılur ol ḳapu şu bir şaḫṣa
K’ola her dem işi cürüm ve günâh
Bu zamân bir ʿaceb zamân oldı
Yaḫşılıḳlar ḳamu yamân oldı

The two couplets from the same poem quoted by Sehî are these:

Yazmaġa ḳâdir olmayan bir elif
Eller üzre ṭutuldı ḫâme mis̱âl
Nâzdan şöyle ṭutdı yükini kim
Söz götürmez olup durur ḥammâl

In English

1. Joy and gladness are twins to the ignorant; to men of learning, pain and sorrow are their born companions.

2. The unbeliever lives untroubled by the worry of bread; the traveller on the road of faith walks without provisions.

3. The talentless are drowned in silver and gold; the master goes about bankrupt and destitute.

4. The great gate (of the state) is like a gate of bribery; like the gate of God it stands open at all times.

5. Open it is indeed, but to the rich; there the poor have neither worth nor standing.

6. That gate opens only to the man whose business is ever crime and sin.

7. This age has become a strange age; all good deeds have turned to evil.

8. One who cannot write so much as an alif is held aloft in people's hands like a pen.

9. He has taken up his load with such airs that he stands like a porter who will bear no word (will brook no criticism).

Literary and Historical Commentary

A Refrain on Everyone's Lips

The poem that kept Refîkî's name alive through the sixteenth century is this tercî'-bend complaining of the times. The tercî'-bend is a verse form in which the same couplet is repeated at the end of each stanza; here the repeated couplet is "Bu zamân bir ʿaceb zamân oldı / Yaḫşılıḳlar ḳamu yamân oldı", This age has become a strange age; all good deeds have turned to evil. Sehî calls the poem "a tercî'-bend kaside complaining of fortune" and says that it gathers astonishing meanings. Beyânî writes that its refrain was "in the mouths of all the world", and Latîfî that nothing else in the poet's divan equals it. According to the entry in the Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü, Âşık Çelebi counts Refîkî's tercî'-bend among the poems to which no response could be written.

The Gate of Bribery

The nine couplets that remain are scattered fragments of the poem, and the full order of its stanzas is unknown. Even so the direction of the complaint is clear. The first stanza lists the inverted order of the world: the ignorant are happy and the learned in sorrow; the unbeliever is fed and the believer without provisions; the talentless are rich and the master poor. The second stanza turns to a bolder target. The "great gate" is the gate of state, and like the gate of God it is always open; but only to the rich and to those stained with crime. That a poet who came from the secretariat of the imperial council should speak so openly of bribery and favour also explains why the couplets passed from mouth to mouth. The two couplets quoted by Sehî turn the same mocking voice on the men of the pen: one who cannot write an alif is held aloft in people's hands like a pen. The idiom "söz götürmez", literally "bears no word", fits both the porter carrying his load and the arrogant man who cannot bear criticism.

Hüsameddin gives the first two couplets as coming from the poet's "nesâyih", his poems of counsel, and reads the rhyme words as "server" and "bî-zâr"; Latîfî states clearly that the couplets belong to this tercî'. The couplet "Tâ seyre çıḳdı", which Hüsameddin gives as the refrain, is a different poem. His secretarial career and the years after he went blind are discussed in the biography Refîkî Ali Çelebi (İbrîzâde).

Bibliography

Primary sources

Official sources

Books

Online sources