Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Ṣayılursa ‘ömrden ey dil şeb-i hicrān baña
Bil ki virmiş Ḥaḳ ta‘ālā ‘ömr-i bī-pāyān baña
Uy eyü ġavġalar itdük ṣulḥa ey bed-ḫū raḳīb
Her ne var ise cihānda hep saña cānān baña
Ḥālüme ḥayrān benüm dildār u ben dīdārına
Bu ne sırdur ben aña ḥayrān u ol ḥayrān baña
Ḫūblarla ‘ışḳ-bāzī göñlüme ḫū oldı ḫū
Kendü ḫūyumdan durur hep bu belā-yı cān baña
Ca‘ferā gülşende ḳızmış na‘ldür her berg-i gül
Yārdan ayru şikence virmege devrān aña

In English

1. O heart, if the night of separation is counted as part of life, know that God Most High has given me a life without end. (Nights of separation never end; if they are added to a life, that life never ends either.)

2. O ill-tempered rival, we have quarrelled enough; agree to make peace: whatever there is in the world, let it all be yours, and let the beloved be mine.

3. The beloved is "hayran" at my state and I at her face; what mystery is this, I am lost in admiration of her and she is amazed at me. (The beloved is astonished at the lover's wretchedness, the lover is smitten with her beauty; "hayran" is used in both senses.)

4. Playing at love with the fair has become a habit of my heart, a habit; this torment of my soul all comes from my own habit.

5. Ca'fer, in the rose garden every rose petal is a horseshoe heated in the fire by fortune to torture one parted from the beloved.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Bargaining with the Rival

The liveliest couplet of the ghazal is the second. The lover offers the rival a deal: "Uy eyü ġavġalar itdük ṣulḥa", "we have had a good fight, agree to peace". Then he divides the spoils: everything in the world goes to the rival, the beloved to himself. Leaving the goods of the world to a rival called coarse and ill-tempered (bed-ḫū) and taking the beloved sets out the lover's scale of values in the language of a bargain. The informal manner close to everyday speech that Erünsal notes in Câfer Çelebi is plainly heard here; "eyü ġavġalar itdük" is a street phrase still understood today.

The first couplet conveys the length of separation through a game of reckoning: if the nights of separation are counted as part of life, the lover has been given an endless life, since those nights never end. The third couplet sets the two faces of the word "ḥayrān" against each other. The beloved is astonished at the lover's state, the lover is enraptured by the beloved's face; at the end of the line the two sides are lined up symmetrically, "ben aña ḥayrān u ol ḥayrān baña", and the word carries a different meaning each time.

Habit and Echo

The fourth couplet rests on the repetition of a sound: "Ḫūblarla ‘ışḳ-bāzī göñlüme ḫū oldı ḫū". The fair ones (ḫūb), habit (ḫū) and "ḫūyumdan" (from my habit) in the second line turn the same sound over again; the repeated "ḫū oldı ḫū" at the end of the line gives the statement the stress of reproach. This time the lover lays the blame neither on the beloved nor on fate but on himself: the torment that has befallen him is the result of his habit of giving his heart to beauties.

The last couplet compares the rose petal to a horseshoe heated in the fire. The redness of the rose calls up the colour of red-hot iron; for the lover in separation every petal in the garden is an instrument of torture in the hands of fortune (devrān). In Erünsal's 2018 printing the last line ends "devrān aña" (to him) and the refrain breaks at this point; in the 1977 thesis on which the same edition rests, the line reads "devrān baña" (to me). Since every couplet of the ghazal ends with the refrain "baña", the reading of the thesis is the more consistent; the rendering follows the printed text. The thesis also notes that in the fourth couplet "bu belā-yı cān" (this torment of the soul) becomes an address, "bu belā ey cān" (this torment, O soul), in the Paris, Hâlet Efendi and Ayasofya copies.

Bibliography

Online sources