Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Ġazab idüp derisin yüzdi ṣabā ġoncalaruñ
Öykünürler dehenine diyü sen sīm-berüñ
Ney-şekerde nite yir yir girih olurdı eger
İşi baġlanmamış olaydı lebüñden şekerüñ
Ḳocmaḳ ol mūy miyānı ulu ni‘metdür ulu
İştihāsı n’ola ger ḳıl ḳapar ise kemerüñ
Urdı letler saçınuñ nekheti müşk-i Ḫutene
Deriye ṣarduġını ṭañlamañuz nāfelerüñ
Vakṭ ola seni der-āgūş ide bir gün Ca‘fer
Çünki var ḳavse daḫi gelmesi geh geh ḳamerüñ

In English

1. O silver-breasted one, because the buds imitate your mouth, the morning breeze in anger has flayed their skin.

2. If sugar's business had not been tied up by your lip, how would there be knots here and there in the sugar cane?

3. To embrace that hair-like waist is a great blessing, a very great one; is it any wonder if the belt, in its appetite, snatches a hair?

4. The scent of your hair has beaten the musk of Khotan; do not wonder that the musk pods are wrapped in skin.

5. A time will come when Ca'fer one day embraces you; for the moon too comes now and then into Sagittarius, the Bow.

Literary and Historical Commentary

The Belt's Appetite

The third couplet turns the divan motif of the beloved's waist being as fine as a hair into a joke of the table. To embrace that hair-like waist is "ulu ni‘met", a great blessing; the word "ni‘met" means both a favour and food, the bounty of the table. The belt encircling the waist has an appetite for this bounty and "snatches a hair" from the dish: finding a hair in one's food is unpleasant, but here the hair the belt snatches is the beloved's waist itself. An everyday experience at table is set inside the motif of the slender waist.

The other couplets of the ghazal are also invented causes. The morning breeze of the opening couplet has grown angry with the buds because they imitate the beloved's small mouth, and has flayed their skin; the opening of the bud is seen as its skin being flayed. The joints of the sugar cane in the second couplet are the knots of sugar's business being "tied up", that is, blocked and brought to a halt, because of the beloved's lip. In the fourth the scent of the beloved's hair has beaten the musk of Khotan; the musk pods being wrapped in skin is like the binding of a beaten man's wounds. Musk is found in a skin pouch in the navel of the musk deer.

The Moon and Sagittarius

The pen-name couplet rests on a piece of astronomical knowledge. "Ḳavs" is both a bow, an arc, and Sagittarius, one of the twelve signs of the zodiac. As it moves through the sky the moon now and then enters Sagittarius; and the lover's arms, opened like an arc, are also a bow, so that the moon-faced beloved will one day enter that arc. A regular event in the heavens becomes the ground of the lover's hope.

In Nazmî the model is Ulvî's ghazal with the opening "Yüzüñüñ tâbı virür nûrını şems ü kamerüñ / Sözüñüñ sûzı virür ta‘mını şehd ü şekerüñ"; Câfer Çelebi's poem comes after Sultan Bayezid's response and is followed by Mestî and Mesîhî. Nazmî gives the end of the opening line as "gonçelerüñ"; since the rhyme of the ghazal is "-erüñ" (sīm-berüñ, şekerüñ, kemerüñ, nāfelerüñ, ḳamerüñ), this reading fits better than the KTB form "ġoncalaruñ". In the KTB printing the ghazal's number is printed "104=105". As for the manuscripts, the Hâlet Efendi copy reads "Ḫışm" for "Ġażab" and "yüzdi derisin" for "derisin yüzdi" in the opening couplet, the Hâlet Efendi and Ayasofya copies "devletdür" for "ni‘metdür" in the third couplet; the Paris copy omits the second line of the fourth couplet.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Academic studies

  • İsmail E. Erünsal, The Life and Works of Tâcî-zâde Ca‘fer Çelebi, with a Critical Edition of His Dîvân, PhD thesis, University of Edinburgh, 1977, vol. 2, ghazal no. 104 (variants). https://era.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/17182

Official sources

Online sources