Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün

Gülşen-i firdevse ṭa‘n eyler cemāli Pīrīnüñ
Ġoncayı dil-teng ider ġanc u delāli Pīrīnüñ
Ḳaddümi ḳıldı ḫamīde māh-ı nev gibi benüm
Āfitāb üstindeki müşkīn hilāli Pīrīnüñ
Gūyiyā maġribde bir hindū durur āyīnedār
Çīn-i zülfinde ruḫı devrinde ḫāli Pīrīnüñ
Gāh gāhī ḫāṭırına bir ḫuṭūr itsem n’ola
Çün beni ġamdan ḫayāl itdi ḫayāli Pīrīnüñ
Mihr ile māha tamām irgürdi noḳṣān u zevāl
Ca‘ferā irdi kemāle çün cemāli Pīrīnüñ

In English

1. Pîrî's beauty finds fault with the rose garden of Paradise; Pîrî's coquetry and grace make the bud narrow of heart.

2. The musky crescent above Pîrî's sunlike face has bent my stature like the new moon.

3. In the curl of Pîrî's tresses, the mole around his face is as if a Hindu stood holding a mirror in the west.

4. Is it any wonder if now and then I cross his mind? For Pîrî's image has turned me through grief into a mere image.

5. O Ca'fer, since Pîrî's beauty reached its fullness, it has brought waning and decline upon the sun and the moon.

Literary and Historical Commentary

A Refrain Built on a Name

The refrain of the ghazal is a proper name: every couplet ends in "Pīrīnüñ", "Pîrî's". In the divan ghazal the beloved is mostly nameless; here he is called by the name of a particular person, and the name is repeated at the end of every couplet. This suggests that the ghazal was written for a real young man, perhaps a companion of the gatherings or a known beauty; but who this Pîrî was is not known. According to the sources Erünsal cites, it is Pîrî Paşa whose name appears in the events leading to Câfer Çelebi's death and who is said to have been his rival; the text of the ghazal, however, gives no ground for any link with this vizier and describes the beloved as a young beauty.

The rhyme runs on "-āli": cemāli, delāli, hilāli, ḫāli, ḫayāli, cemāli. The word "cemāl" (beauty) is the rhyme both in the opening and in the pen-name couplet. Pîrî's beauty, in the opening couplet, finds fault with the garden of Paradise and narrows the bud's heart; "dil-teng", narrow of heart, is also the cramped, closed shape of the bud.

A Hindu in the West

The third couplet builds an image of sky and map. The beloved's face is the sun; the curl of the tresses is the west, "maġrib", where the sun sets. The black mole standing at the edge of the tresses, around the face, is a Hindu holding a mirror in that west: in divan poetry the mole is called a Hindu because of its colour, and the mirror-holder is a servant who shows the face to itself. The Paris and Hâlet Efendi copies read "āyīne-vār" (like a mirror) for "āyīnedār" (mirror-holder).

The fourth couplet works two pairs of words together: "ḫāṭır" (mind) and "ḫuṭūr" (crossing the mind), and "ḫayāl" and "ḫayāl". Pîrî's image has wasted the lover with grief and turned him into an image, a shadow; and one who has become an image may now and then cross the mind. The pen-name couplet returns to the language of the sky: when Pîrî's beauty reached "kemāl", fullness, the sun and the moon met with "noḳṣān u zevāl", waning and setting. Here the Paris and Manchester copies read "kemāli" for "cemāli". Nazmî's anthology does not contain this ghazal on Pîrî's name.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • İsmail E. Erünsal (ed.), Tâcî-zâde Ca‘fer Çelebi Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yay., 2018 (e-book), pp. 405-406, ghazal no. 107. https://ekitap.ktb.gov.tr/TR-211662/taci-zade-cafer-celebi-divani.html
  • İsmail E. Erünsal, "Hayatı ve Eserleri", introduction to Tâcî-zâde Ca‘fer Çelebi Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yay., 2018 (e-book), pp. 17-18 (records concerning Pîrî Paşa). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr

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. 107 (variants). https://era.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/17182

Online sources