Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Şafaḳdan itdi meh-i nev çü āşikār ḳadeḥ
Ṣun imdi ba‘de-i la‘l ile zer-nigār ḳadeḥ
Şu deñlü mest olur oldı ki götürülür elde
Olalı şevḳ-i lebüñle şarāb-ḫvār ḳadeḥ
Dem-i ṣabāḥ oluben çün irişdi vaḳt-i ṣabūḥ
Ṭulu‘ iderse ne ṭañ āfitāb-vār ḳadeḥ
Lebüñ ḫayāli gelicek ḫaṭuñ ḫayāli gider
Ki ṣāf ider dil ü cānı ḳomaz ġubār ḳadeḥ
Senüñle bir dem olımaya leb-be-leb Ca‘fer
Ger ide ḫākini devrān hezār bār ḳadeḥ

In English

1. Since the new moon has appeared out of the twilight like a cup, pour now the gold-chased cup with ruby wine.

2. Since the cup became a wine-drinker in longing for your lips, it has grown so drunk that it is now carried from hand to hand.

3. Now that morning has come and the hour of the morning draught has arrived, is it any wonder if the cup rises like the sun?

4. When the image of your lips comes, the image of your down departs; for the cup clears heart and soul and leaves no dust or dregs.

5. Even if fortune were to make Ca'fer's dust into a cup a thousand times, Ca'fer could not be lip to lip with you for a single moment.

Literary and Historical Commentary

From Crescent to Cup

The ghazal opens at evening and goes on into morning. The new moon of the first couplet, appearing in the red of twilight, is like a golden cup full of red wine; the lover takes it as a sign and asks the cupbearer for a cup. In the third it is morning and the time of "ṣabūḥ", the morning draught. Between the evening crescent and the morning sun, the cup is likened to two heavenly bodies at once: first the crescent, then the rising sun. The refrain is "ḳadeḥ" (cup), and in each couplet the cup takes on another guise; it gets drunk and is carried from hand to hand, becomes a filter that clears the heart, and finally turns into a vessel made of the lover's own dust.

The conceit of the second couplet rests on the cup's being "carried in the hand". At gatherings the cup passes from hand to hand; a drunk man, too, can only be carried off held by the arms. The cup that drinks wine in longing for the beloved's lips is so far gone that it must now be carried. The word "ġubār" in the fourth couplet has two senses: the dust and dregs the wine clears away, and also the down on the cheek, likened to the fine "gubar" script. When the image of the lips comes, the image of the down is wiped away, for the cup leaves no "gubar" in the heart.

A Cup Made of Dust

The pen-name couplet rests on the idea that pots and cups are made from the dust of the dead. Even after death the lover's dust might become a cup and touch lips; yet though fortune made it into a cup a thousand times, it would never reach the beloved's lips. It is a hard close, saying that separation cannot be overcome even by death.

Nazmî's anthology files the ghazal as a response to Ahmed Paşa's ghazal beginning "Safâ-yı ‘aks-i lebüñ mi_aldı ey nigâr kadeh"; Nazmî also has two poems on the same ground. In the anthology the first line reads "Şafakdan itdi meh-i nev çün âşkâr kadeh". In the divan manuscripts the differences are single words: Erünsal's thesis has the Manchester copy reading "oldı götürülür" for "oldı ki götürülür" in the second couplet, the Paris copy "ne var" for "ne ṭañ" in the third, and the Hâlet Efendi copy "Ki" for "Ger" 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. 16 (variants). https://era.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/17182

Official sources

Online sources