Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

İstedi na‘leynüñe yüz süre Pervīn ü hilāl
Bir niçe mismār-ı sīm oldı bu ol zerrīn düvāl
Ḫırḳa-pūş-ı zülfüñe bir la‘l tesbīḥ eyledi
Rişte-i ḳadd-i dü-tāmı ḳaṭre ḳaṭre eşk-i āl
Baġladı iller ṭutup bu ḳıpḳızıl Mecnūn diyü
Ḫaddüñe öykündi çün güldeste ey Leylī-cemāl
Bāddan cānā ser-i zülfüñ dünīm olmış degül
Aġzın açup ḥüsnüñe ḥayrāndur ol şūrīde-ḥāl
Gözleri ‘aksini gör çeşmümde yāruñ Ca‘ferā
Ṣanki gelmiş ṣu içer bir çeşmede iki ġazāl

In English

1. The Pleiades and the crescent wished to rub their faces on your sandals; they became a few silver nails and that golden strap.

2. My red tears, drop by drop, strung on the thread of my doubled stature, have made a ruby rosary for your khirqa-wearing tresses.

3. O you of Leylâ's beauty, because the bouquet of roses imitated your cheek, people seized it and bound it, saying "this crimson Mecnun".

4. O soul, the tip of your tresses has not been split in two by the wind; that distracted one has opened its mouth in wonder at your beauty.

5. O Ca'fer, see the reflection of the beloved's eyes in my eye; it is as if two gazelles had come to a spring and were drinking.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Two Gazelles at a Spring

The pen-name couplet is built on the two meanings of the word "çeşm": eye and spring. The lover's eye is a spring filled with tears; the beloved's two eyes are reflected in this spring. The two reflected eyes resemble two gazelles that have come to the spring's edge to drink. In divan poetry the beloved's eye is often likened to a gazelle's eye; here the likeness becomes a landscape. The lover's tears give water to the beloved's eyes.

The opening couplet brings two bright bodies down from the sky to the beloved's feet. The Pleiades and the crescent wished to rub their faces on the beloved's sandals and have become their ornaments: the small stars of the Pleiades have become a few silver nails, and the crescent a golden strap. Old sandals and shoes were made with silver nails and leather or ornamented straps. Even the heavenly bodies are content to take a place beneath the beloved's feet. Words ending in "-āl" form the rhyme: hilāl, düvāl, āl, cemāl, ḥāl, ġazāl.

A Bound Bouquet

The third couplet draws a jest from the story of Leylâ and Mecnun. Mecnun, having lost his reason, was put in chains and bound by the people. A bouquet of roses, too, is flowers bound together. The lover finds the reason: the bouquet imitated the cheek of the beloved, who has Leylâ's beauty, and became a crimson Mecnun; and the people seized it and bound it. The lover's bloody tears of the second couplet, strung on the thread of his doubled body, have become a ruby rosary for the tresses. The tresses are "ḫırḳa-pūş", wearing a dervish's cloak; and a rosary is a gift fitting for this dervish.

The fourth couplet does not blame the wind for the splitting of the tresses' tip in two; the tresses have opened their mouth in wonder at the beloved's beauty. In Nazmî's anthology the ghazal is in the circle that opens with Ahmed Paşa's ghazal beginning "Hey ala gözlüm bizümle nice bir bu mekr ü al"; in this circle it comes after Kemâl, Kemalpaşazâde (with two ghazals) and Mehdî, and is followed by Mehemmed Beg-i Defterî. In the second couplet the Hâlet Efendi copy reads "ḥüsnüñe" for "zülfüñe", and the Paris copy "dü-tāyı" for "dü-tāmı".

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

Official sources

Online sources