Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Ḫaṭuñ kitāb-ı ruḫuñdan çıḳardı naḳl-i ṣaḥīḥ
Ki ġamzeñ itdügidür baña ẓulm-ı ṣarīḥ
Ḥarāmī çeşmüñe ḳan içmege lebüñ fetvā
Virürse tañ mı k’idüpdür meyi ḥelāl Mesīh
Semen varaḳlarına gülşen-i ‘ıẕāruñda
Ḫatuñ benefşeleri yazdı el-beyāż ṣaḥīḥ
‘Aceb mi münkir-i vech-i ḥasen olursa raḳīb
Mes̱el durur ki ḳabīḥüñ olur her işi ḳabīḥ
Çü düşdi başına sevdāsı zülf-i dildāruñ
‘Aceb mi boynına zāhid ṭolar ise tesbīḥ
Kitāb-ı ḥüsn-i cemālinde Kātib-i ḳudret
Ġubār ḫaṭṭıla yazmış lebine ente melīḥ
Añup bu ni‘meti Ca‘fer Ḫudāya şükr eyle
Ki luṭf-ı ṭab‘ ile virdi saña lisān-ı faṣīḥ

In English

1. Your down has drawn a sound tradition from the book of your cheek: what your glance has done to me is [all] open tyranny.

2. Is it any wonder if your lips give your highwayman eye a legal opinion permitting it to drink blood? For the Messiah (the lips) has made wine lawful.

3. In the rose garden of your cheek, the violets of your down have written on the jasmine petals "el-beyāż ṣaḥīḥ" (the blank is correct).

4. Is it any wonder if the rival denies the fair face? There is a saying: "everything the ugly do is ugly".

5. Since the passion for the beloved's tresses has fallen upon his head, is it any wonder if the ascetic winds his rosary round his neck?

6. In the book of her beauty, the Scribe of Divine Power has written above her lips in fine gubar script "ente melīḥ" (you are lovely).

7. Ca'fer, remember this bounty and give thanks to God; for through the grace of your nature He has given you an eloquent tongue.

Literary and Historical Commentary

A Ghazal in the Terms of Hadith Scholarship

The ghazal is a description of beauty written in the language of learning and of books. Its rhyme words are ṣaḥīḥ, ṣarīḥ, Mesīḥ, ḳabīḥ, tesbīḥ, melīḥ and faṣīḥ, and some of them are technical terms of hadith scholarship. The down of the first couplet (ḫaṭ, which also means writing) transmits from the book of the cheek a "naḳl-i ṣaḥīḥ", a sound report; the text of the report is an explicit (ṣarīḥ) verdict: what the glance does to the lover is tyranny. In the fourth couplet "vech-i ḥasen" (a fair face) stands against "ḳabīḥ" (ugly); in hadith methodology "hasen" is the name of a grade of reports. The second couplet has the lips issue a legal opinion like a mufti, and these lips, likened to the Messiah, the breath that raises the dead, make wine lawful. Câfer Çelebi's madrasa training shows in this ghazal through the fitting of technical terms to the beloved.

The phrase "el-beyāż ṣaḥīḥ" in the third couplet recalls the note "the blank is correct" that scribes wrote beside a space left empty in manuscripts. This reading is not in the source, but the couplet is obscure in any case: on the cheek, white as jasmine petals, the violets of the down, that is, the dark hairs, have fallen like writing. The sixth couplet continues the same idea: God, as "the Scribe of Divine Power", has written in the book of beauty, above the lips, in the fine script called gubar, the Arabic sentence "ente melīḥ" (you are lovely).

An Eloquent Tongue

Erünsal cites the pen-name couplet as a sign of the care Câfer Çelebi took over his style: the poet says that God has given him a "lisān-ı faṣīḥ", a clear and correct tongue, and gives thanks for it. Erünsal also cites the first couplet of the same ghazal as an example of the use of the conjunction "ki". In the introduction and in the thesis this line reads "baña cümle ẓulm-ı ṣarīḥ"; in the text of the 2018 printing the word "cümle" (all) is missing, and in the rendering it is shown in square brackets.

The copies differ in small points of grammar. In the thesis the Hâlet Efendi and Ayasofya copies read "ider" for "idüpdür" in the second couplet, and the Paris and Ayasofya copies "sevdā-yı zülfi" for "sevdāsı zülf-i" in the fifth. In the Paris copy the end of the sixth couplet reads "anda melīḥ" and the beginning of the last "şükr it kim".

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. 328-329, ghazal no. 17. https://ekitap.ktb.gov.tr/TR-211662/taci-zade-cafer-celebi-divani.html
  • İsmail E. Erünsal, "Ca‘fer Çelebi'nin Edebî Kişiliği", introduction to Tâcî-zâde Ca‘fer Çelebi Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yay., 2018 (e-book), pp. 58 (lisân-ı fasîh), 60 (the conjunction "ki"). 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. 17 (text and variants). https://era.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/17182

Online sources