Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Beñ degüldür lebi üstündeki her sīm-tenüñ
Siñek üşmişdür aġızlarına devrüñde senüñ
Gördi öykündi semen ‘ārıżuña ḫışmından
Her ḳılı bir diken oldı ṣanemā nesterenüñ
Ġoncalar ṣanma çemende biteni ey yüzi gül
Çıḳdı başlar ġam-ı derdüñle içinde çemenüñ
Çāk idüp sīnesini çekdi derūnına seni
Sevdüginden ṭapuñı cānı gibi pirehenüñ
Deyni var her birine būseden ey māye-i cān
Gizlenürse n’ola ‘uşşāḳ gözinden dehenüñ
Öykünür gül yüzüñe diyü çemenlerde ṣabā
Sürmedük yir ḳomadı yüzini berg-i semenüñ
Nāfe-veş ḳanlar uyuşdı dil-i Ca‘ferde yine
Zülfine baş ḳoşalı bir saçı müşk-i Ḫutenüñ

In English

1. What is on the lip of every silver-bodied one is not a mole; in your time flies have swarmed upon their mouths.

2. O idol, seeing the jasmine imitate your cheek, every hair of the eglantine became a thorn from its anger.

3. O rose-faced one, do not think that what grows in the meadow is buds; heads have come up inside the meadow from grief and pain for you.

4. The shirt, loving your body like its own soul, tore open its breast and drew you within.

5. O substance of the soul, your mouth owes each of them a kiss; is it any wonder if it hides from the lovers' eyes?

6. Because the jasmine leaf imitated your rose face, the morning breeze left no place in the meadows where it did not rub its face.

7. Since a strand of the musk of Khotan made common cause with her tresses, blood has again clotted like a musk pod in Ca'fer's heart.

Literary and Historical Commentary

A Mouth in Debt

The fifth couplet is a scene of debtor and creditor. The beloved's mouth owes every lover a kiss; the creditors are at the door. As a debtor hides from his creditors, so the mouth hides from the lovers' eyes. That the beloved's mouth is so small as to be almost invisible is a known motif of divan poetry; Câfer Çelebi finds a cause for this invisibility in everyday life: the mouth hides not because it is small but because it is in debt.

The opening couplet too draws on the same everyday observation. The moles above the lips of other beauties are not really moles; because in the beloved's time no one looks at them, flies have swarmed upon their mouths. Like flies settling on a sweet left untouched, the neglected lips fill with flies. The rhyme is on "-en", followed by the suffix "-üñ" (of): sīm-tenüñ, senüñ, nesterenüñ, çemenüñ, pirehenüñ, dehenüñ, semenüñ, Ḫutenüñ.

Nizâmî's Ground

Nazmî attaches the ghazal to Nizâmî's ghazal with the opening "Tutdı mülk-i Hoten etrâfını berg-i semenüñ". Câfer Çelebi, coming after Kâsım Paşa and Nişânî, is followed by Necâtî and Kâtibî; Kâtibî wrote two responses on this ground. The ground poem's words "berg-i semen" (jasmine leaf) and "Hoten" (Khotan) are also in Câfer Çelebi's ghazal: in the sixth couplet the face of the jasmine leaf is rubbed on the ground, and in the pen-name couplet a strand of the musk of Khotan makes common cause with the beloved's tresses.

The pen-name couplet rests on an old belief about the musk deer: musk was believed to form from blood clotting in the deer's navel. In Ca'fer's heart too blood has clotted, and the heart has turned into a musk pod. The shirt of the fourth couplet, loving the beloved's body like its own soul, has torn open its breast and drawn her within; the collar of the garment stands open. The variants are spread over several couplets: the Paris copy reads "sīm-berüñ" for "sīm-tenüñ" in the opening couplet, the Hâlet Efendi and Ayasofya copies "ġam u derdüñle" for "ġam-ı derdüñle" in the third; the Ayasofya copy writes "ṭapuña" for "ṭapuñı" in the fourth and "ḳoşaydı" for "ḳoşalı" in the last.

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

Official sources

Online sources