Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mef‘ûlü Fâ‘ilâtü Mefâ‘îlü Fâ‘ilün

Göñlüm esîr olalı bu zülf-i müce‘‘ede
Eyler siyâh baht ile her gice ‘arbede
Ey meh senüñle mihr uralı hüsn lâfını
Günden güne zevâl irüp oldı felek-zede
Her lahza bir işâreti yüz biñ çekerdiler
Âyâ ne hâsıyet kodı Hak tîr-i gam-zede
Nazmum cevâhirini göreydi bu lutf ile
Tesbîh idünürdi nüfûs-ı mücerrede
Kânûnı Sa‘diyâ o cefâ-pîşenüñ bu kim
Çeng-i gama salup dili ney gibi iñlede

In English

1. Ever since my heart became captive to these curling locks, it quarrels every night with its black fortune. (Both the beloved's hair and the lover's fortune are black; because the heart is the prisoner of the hair, it wrangles with its fortune night after night.)

2. O moon-faced one, ever since the sun boasted of beauty in rivalry with you, it has declined day by day and become stricken by fate. ("Zevâl" is both the sun's descent from its zenith and the decline of anything; "felek-zede" means both "unfortunate" and "struck by the heavens"; both recall the sun's path through the sky.)

3. A hundred thousand bear the burden of every sign she makes at each moment; what property, one wonders, has God placed in that arrow of the glance? (The edition writes the phrase as "tîr-i gam-zede"; it can be read either as "the arrow in the glance" or as "the arrow shot at the grief-stricken lover". The verb "çekmek" also means both "to endure" and "to be drawn, attracted".)

4. Had the disembodied souls seen the jewels of my verse with this grace, they would have taken them as their prayer beads. (Nüfûs-ı mücerrede means souls freed from matter, or angels. Tesbîh means both prayer beads and the glorification of God; the souls would have strung the pearls of the poem as beads and praised God with them.)

5. O Sa'dî, this is the law of that beloved whose habit is cruelty: to cast the heart into the claw of grief and make it wail like the reed flute. (Kânûn means both "law" and a stringed instrument; çeng means both "claw" and the harp; ney is the reed flute. In the couplet these three words create a congruence of images drawn from music.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The ghazal has five couplets and is the only complete ghazal of Tâcîzâde Sa'dî Çelebi to survive whose attribution is clear. The metre is the muzâri‘ pattern of aruz (quantitative metre) "Mef‘ûlü Fâ‘ilâtü Mefâ‘îlü Fâ‘ilün". The rhyme falls on "-ede": müce‘‘ede, ‘arbede, felek-zede, gam-zede, mücerrede, iñlede; there is no separate refrain word (redif). In the last couplet the poet names his pen name (mahlas) as "Sa‘diyâ".

The ghazal is found in two different anthologies of response poems. In Edirneli Nazmî's Mecma‘u'n-Nezâ'ir it stands as no. 4657 under the heading "Nazîre-i Sa‘dî Çelebi-i Tâcî-zâde"; the text given here rests on this edition. In the Pervâne Bey Mecmuası it appears as no. 6393 under the heading "Nazîre-i Birâder-i Ca‘fer Çelebi", the response of Câfer Çelebi's brother. The text in the two anthologies is the same in the opening couplet, the second couplet and the final couplet; the third and fourth couplets, however, are entirely different. In Pervâne the third couplet reads "Derd-i ḫumârını o ser-i rind-i mey-fürûş / Bir himmet itmez imiş aña pîr-i meykede" (the elder of the tavern, it seems, shows no favour to the hangover of that wine-selling reveller), and the fourth "Bir şi‘r-i ter didüm yine zülf-i nigâra kim / Berg-i gül üzre yaraşur itsem müsevvede" (again I composed such a fresh poem to the beloved's locks that it would be fitting to draft it on a rose petal). The opening couplet also shows small differences: Pervâne reads "ol zülf" for "bu zülf" and "sipâh-i baḫt" (the army of fortune) for "siyâh baht"; in the final couplet Pervâne has "Ceng-i ġama" (into the battle of grief) instead of "Çeng-i gama". Which text is the poet's final form cannot be known; but Nazmî's readings "siyâh baht" and "çeng" better preserve the inner congruence of the couplets.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

To understand the ghazal one has to know its model poem. Sa'dî's ghazal is a nazire (response poem) to the ghazal of his elder brother Tâcîzâde Câfer Çelebi that begins "Bir şi‘r-i ter didüm hat-ı ruhsâr-ı Ahmed'e / Rengîn varaklara anı kıldum müsevvede" (I composed a fresh poem to the down on Ahmed's cheek and drafted it on colourful leaves). In his ghazal Câfer uses rhyme words such as "nüfûs-ı mücerrede", "‘arbede" and "zülf-i müce‘‘ede"; Sa'dî carries all of them into his own poem. In Câfer's couplet "Nakş oldı dilde sûreti çün mâh-rûlaruñ / Mir'ât idindi anı nüfûs-ı mücerrede" the souls take the image of the beloved as their mirror; in Sa'dî's fourth couplet the same souls take the pearls of the poet's verse as their prayer beads. This reply, built on the same rhyme and the same verb, conveys a playful contest of skill between the brothers. That the fourth couplet of the Pervâne text begins "Bir şi‘r-i ter didüm", with the opening words of Câfer's ghazal, makes the link plainer still.

The opening couplet is built on the likeness between black locks and black fortune: since the heart fell captive to the locks, it quarrels every night with its dark fortune. The congruence (tenasüp) of the words "siyâh" (black), "gice" (night) and "zülf" (locks) conveys a heart shut into a dark world. In the second couplet "mihr" (sun) and "meh" (moon) are set against each other; the sun's daily descent from its zenith and setting is explained as a calamity it suffers for having entered a beauty contest with the beloved. This too is hüsn-i ta‘lîl, the figure of the poetic cause. The words "zevâl" and "felek-zede" make the couplet two-layered by referring both to astronomy and to fortune.

The third couplet is the most obscure in the ghazal. The edition writes the phrase separated as "tîr-i gam-zede"; yet "gamze", the beloved's wounding glance, is also heard in the couplet. In one reading, a hundred thousand lovers bear the weight of each of the beloved's signs, and the poet marvels at what property God has placed in the arrow of the glance. In the fourth couplet the poet praises his own verse, a stance often met in divan poetry just before the final couplet. The double entendre (tevriye) of tesbîh is the point of the couplet: it answers both to the strung prayer beads and to the remembrance of God.

The final couplet is the most skilful in the ghazal. The word "kânûn" means both "law" and a stringed instrument, "çeng" both "claw" and an instrument; "ney" is a wind instrument. While saying that the beloved's law is to cast the heart into the claw of grief and make it wail like the reed flute, the poet also assembles a musical gathering of kanun, harp and reed flute. Pervâne's reading "ceng" (battle) breaks this threefold musical congruence; Nazmî's text therefore seems more consistent.

Historical Context

When the ghazal was written is not known, but the circle in which it was written is clear. In Nazmî, responses to Câfer Çelebi's model ghazal were also written by Ekmelî, İshâk Çelebi, Revânî, Zâtî, Sabûhî, Şem‘î, Şevkî, Sühâyî, Şânî, Câmî, Hıfzî, Sabâyî, Le'âlî, Enverî and the compiler Nazmî; most of them are poets of the reigns of Bayezid II, Selim I and Süleyman. In the Pervâne Bey Mecmuası the model of the same group of response poems is a ghazal by Şevkî, and Câfer Çelebi's poem is itself among its responses. According to the TDV Encyclopaedia of Islam, Sa'dî Çelebi was at Bursa between 897 and 906 (1492-1501) and wrote letters from there to his elder brother lamenting their separation; he later moved to Istanbul. This brotherhood, which ended with Câfer's execution in 921 (1515), left a literary trace in this response poem, in which the two poets compete in the same rhyme.

Bibliography

Official sources

  • Edirneli Nazmî, Mecma‘u'n-Nezâ'ir, ed. M. Fatih Köksal, Ankara: Ministry of Culture and Tourism Publications, 2017 (e-book), p. 1521, poem no. 4657; Câfer Çelebi's model ghazal no. 4655.
  • Pervâne b. Abdullah, Pervâne Bey Mecmuası, ed. Kamil Ali Gıynaş, Ankara: Ministry of Culture and Tourism Publications, 2017 (e-book), pp. 2319-2320, poem no. 6393 (folio 505b); Câfer Çelebi's response no. 6390, Şevkî's model ghazal no. 6388.

Books

  • İsmail E. Erünsal, "Tâcîzâde Sâdî Çelebi", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 39, Istanbul 2010, p. 356. islamansiklopedisi.org.tr
  • İsmail E. Erünsal, "Tâcîzâde Câfer Çelebi", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 39, Istanbul 2010, pp. 353-356. islamansiklopedisi.org.tr

Online sources