Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

‘Ārıżuñ üstine kim düşmiş bu kākül şāḫ şāḫ
Yāsemīne sāye ṣalmış ṣanki sünbül şāḫ şāḫ
Bulına bir şāḫ-ı gül ḳaddüñ gibi şāyed diyü
Gülşeni hergün gezer ḳumrī vü bülbül şāḫ şāḫ
Bülbül ol ġulġuller it muṭrib ki tāb-ı bādeden
Bāġ-ı ḥüsninde açılmış ḳırmızı gül şāḫ şāḫ
Kesmezem şimşād-ı ṭurreñden elüm ger şāne-vār
Cismümi ḳılsañ daḫi ey şūh-ı şengül şāḫ şāḫ
Gördügi serv-i dilārāya oḳur Ca‘fer ġazel
Ṣanki bülbüldür ider gülbāng ü ġulġul şāḫ şāḫ

In English

1. These locks have fallen branch by branch over your cheek; it is as if the hyacinth had cast its shadow, branch by branch, on the jasmine.

2. Hoping that a rose branch like your stature might be found, the turtledove and the nightingale wander the rose garden every day, branch by branch.

3. O minstrel, be a nightingale and pour out melodies; for in the garden of her beauty red roses have opened branch by branch from the heat of wine.

4. O playful, merry beauty, though you split my body branch by branch like a comb, I will not take my hand from your forelock like the boxwood.

5. Ca'fer recites ghazals to every heart-adorning cypress he sees; he is like a nightingale pouring out song and warbling from branch to branch.

Literary and Historical Commentary

"Şāḫ Şāḫ"

The doubled word "şāḫ şāḫ" serves as the ghazal's refrain. Persian "şāḫ" means branch; the doubling means both "branch by branch, in bunches" and that something is in pieces, in clusters. Câfer Çelebi ties this doubling to something different in each couplet: the locks spilling over the cheek, the birds wandering the rose garden, the roses opening, the body split apart and the nightingale singing on the branch. The rhyme words are kākül, sünbül, bülbül, gül, şengül and ġulġul; the repeated sound "-ül", joined to the syllables of the refrain "şāḫ şāḫ", gives the ghazal a sound texture of its own. Erünsal says that Câfer Çelebi built some of his ghazals with a sound pattern suited to musical setting; with its structure resting on repetition of sound, this ghazal is a poem of that kind.

The images of the ghazal compose a garden scene. The locks of the first couplet resemble hyacinth and the cheek jasmine; the hyacinth has cast its shadow on the jasmine. In the second the turtledove and the nightingale wander the garden in search of a rose branch like the beloved's stature; the turtledove's love of the cypress and the nightingale's of the rose are familiar motifs, and the beloved's stature contains both. In the third the beloved's cheeks have reddened with the heat of wine, and roses have bloomed "in the garden of beauty".

A Boxwood Comb

The fourth couplet rests on the image of a comb. Combs were made of boxwood, their teeth opened by cuts; the lover says that even if his body were split tooth by tooth like a comb, he would not take his hand from the beloved's forelock. The comb's never leaving the hair is the likeness of the lover's never leaving the forelock; the word "şimşād" calls up both the wood of the comb and a tree that recalls the beloved's stature. In the couplet the beloved is addressed as "şūḫ-ı şengül"; şengül means a merry, playful beauty.

Closing with his pen name, the poet likens himself to the nightingale: whenever he sees the cypress-tall beloved he recites ghazals, as the nightingale sings from branch to branch. For the second couplet the thesis notes a variant: the Paris copy rearranges the words as "ḳadduñ gibi bir şāḫ-ı gül".

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • İsmail E. Erünsal (ed.), Tâcî-zâde Ca‘fer Çelebi Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yay., 2018 (e-book), p. 330, ghazal no. 19. 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. 66-67 (musical diction and poems suited to setting). 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. 19 (variant). https://era.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/17182

Online sources