Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilün

Baḳmazam yüzine ben anı naẓardan ṣaḳınup
Ruḫ-ı pākīzesini nūr-ı baṣardan ṣaḳınup
Dilemez cān ki ḫayālüñ dil-i ‘uşşāḳa gele
‘Aks-i māh-ı ruḫuñı āyīnelerden ṣaḳınup
Dem-i enfās-ı du‘ām ile zirihler düzilür
Cūy-ı eşkümde seni tīr-i naẓardan ṣaḳınup
Girye ḳılmaz şeb-i vuṣlatda ruḫūn karşusına
Ṭıfl-ı eşkini gözüm tāb-ı ḳamerden ṣaḳınup
Bir naẓar istemezem dīde vü dilden gidesin
Sen güzeller şehin āsīb-i seferden ṣaḳınup
Oḳur efsūn üfürür ṭarafa bād seni
Nāle-i nīm-şeb ü āh-ı seḥerden ṣaḳınup
Ca‘ferā sīnede peykānına cān ḳarşu gelür
Jeng ola diyü anı ḫūn-ı cigerden ṣaḳınup

In English

1. I do not look at her face, guarding her face from the evil eye and her pure cheek from the light of my own eyes.

2. The soul does not wish your image to come into lovers' hearts, guarding the reflection of your moonlike face from mirrors. (Hearts are mirrors; the jealous soul begrudges others even the beloved's reflection.)

3. In the stream of my tears, coats of mail are woven from the breath of my prayers to guard you from the arrow of glances. (The rings the breath makes on water are likened to the rings of chain mail.)

4. On the night of union my eye does not weep before your face, guarding the child of its tears from the moonlight. (The face is the moon; the teardrop is likened to a child, and moonlight to the "moonstroke" believed to harm children.)

5. O king of beauties, guarding you from the hazards of travel, I do not wish you to leave my eye and heart even for a moment.

6. The wind recites charms and breathes on you, to guard you from the midnight moan and the sigh of dawn.

7. O Ca'fer, in the breast the soul runs to meet her arrowhead, guarding it from the blood of the liver lest it rust.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Guarding from the Evil Eye

Every couplet ends on an anxious wish to protect, for the refrain is "ṣaḳınup", "guarding". The lover wants to shield the beloved from the evil eye, and to do so he first gives up his own gaze. In the first couplet he does not look at the beloved's face, since even the light of his own eye might harm that cheek. The folk belief in the evil eye widens couplet by couplet: in the second the soul guards the beloved's reflection from mirrors; in the third coats of mail are woven from the breath of prayer in the stream of tears; in the sixth the wind recites and breathes like a charmer. The rhyme words turn around naẓar, baṣar, āyīneler, ḳamer, sefer and seḥer.

The image of mail in the third couplet rests on the surface of water. Breath blown on water opens ring after ring of ripples; these rings are likened to the links of a coat of mail. In this way the stream of the weeping lover's tears becomes armour that shields the beloved from the arrows of other people's glances. Likening ripples to mail is a familiar image in divan poetry; Câfer Çelebi joins it to prayer.

Moonstroke

Erünsal cites the fourth couplet as an example of leff ü neşr (a figure in which terms are listed and then matched) in the divan. The first line names weeping and the beloved's face, the second the child of tears and the light of the moon; the face answers to the moon and weeping to the tears. Behind the couplet one senses the common belief that moonlight brings illness when it falls on children. Since the teardrop is called a "child" (ṭıfl-ı eşk), the lover does not let it out before the beloved's moonlike face.

The last couplet turns the idea of protection on himself. When the beloved's arrow pierces the lover's breast his soul runs to meet it, yet it fears that the arrowhead may rust in the blood of the liver. Even the lover's own blood might soil something that belongs to the beloved; the restraint of the first couplet is repeated at the end of the ghazal, this time for the lover's body.

Bibliography

  • İsmail E. Erünsal (ed.), Tâcî-zâde Ca‘fer Çelebi Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yay., 2018 (e-book), pp. 321-322, ghazal no. 10. https://ekitap.ktb.gov.tr/TR-211662/taci-zade-cafer-celebi-divani.html
  • İsmail E. Erünsal, "Ca‘fer Çelebi'nin Edebî Kişiliği", introduction to Tâcî-zâde Ca‘fer Çelebi Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yay., 2018 (e-book), p. 60 (examples of leff ü neşr). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr