Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Sāḳiyā zer sāġara ṭoldur şarāb-ı nāblar
Çehre-i zerd üzre döksün müdde‘ī ḫūn-āblar
Germ olup ḥūrī-likālar pīrehen çāk eylesün
Bezme açılsun yine ḫuld-ı berīnden bāblar
Ḳaşlaruñ üzre perīşān it muṭarrā ṭurreñi
Kim çelīpālar yiridür kāfirī miḥrāblar
Sensüz ey serv-i revān girdāb-ı ḫūnīndür baña
Ṣu kenārında görinen lāle-i sīr-āblar
Ḳılca ḳalmış bir nice āşüfte-cāndur şevḳden
Mū degüldür Ca‘ferā bu zülf-i ‘anber-ṭāblar

In English

1. Cupbearer, fill the golden cup with pure wines; let the plaintiff rival pour bloody tears over his yellowed face.

2. Let the houri-faced be roused and tear their shirts; let gates open once more upon the gathering from the high Paradise.

3. Scatter your fragrant forelock over your brows; for the place of infidel prayer niches is the cross. (The brows are likened to a prayer niche, the curling forelock to a cross.)

4. O swaying cypress, without you the well-watered tulips seen by the water's edge are whirlpools of blood to me.

5. O Ca'fer, these amber-scented tresses are not hairs; they are many distraught souls worn thin as a hair by longing.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Golden Cup, Yellow Face

The first couplet of the ghazal builds the gathering in two colours. The cupbearer fills the golden cup with pure wine; the plaintiff (müdde‘ī), that is, the lover's rival, left outside the gathering, pours bloody tears over his yellowed face. The yellow of the gold answers to the yellow of the rival's face, the red of the wine to the blood of the tears. Rhyme and refrain meet in the sound "-āblar": nāblar (pure wines), ḫūn-āblar (bloody waters), bāblar (gates), miḥrāblar (prayer niches), sīr-āblar (the well-watered) and ‘anber-ṭāblar (amber-scented curls). This refrain, built with the plural suffix, shows all the images of the ghazal in multitude.

The second couplet compares the excitement of the gathering with Paradise: the houri-faced tear their shirts, and gates open from Paradise upon the gathering. Tearing one's shirt is a familiar sign of ecstasy and rapture in divan poetry.

Prayer Niche and Cross

The third couplet leans on the tradition in divan poetry of describing the beloved through the symbols of two religions. The brows, with their arched shape, are likened to a prayer niche; the forelock, with its curls and blackness, calls up unbelief and the cross (çelīpā). The lover asks the beloved to scatter her forelock over her brows, for the place of "infidel prayer niches" is the cross: when the brows are covered by unbelief, the prayer niche turns infidel. The couplet carries an ironic subtlety that brings the sacred and the forbidden together in one face.

Separation changes the landscape of the fourth couplet. The tulips blooming by the water seem to the lover, when the beloved is absent, like whirlpools of blood; the red of the tulip and the turning of the water become a whirlpool in which tears and blood mingle. The pen-name couplet likens each strand of the tresses to a lover's soul: souls worn thin as a hair by love have mingled with the tresses, and what the eye takes for hairs are in fact distraught souls. The word "perīşān" describes both dishevelled hair and a wretched state. Nazmî left the ghazal out of his anthology, and the copies in Erünsal's thesis agree closely on its text.

Bibliography

Online sources