Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: fe‘ilātün mefā‘ilün fe‘ilün

Öldi cān ġuṣṣadan behey kāfir
Döndi tābūta ten behey kāfir
Cevrüñüñ cān ise me’āli meh al
Cāna ḳalmaz seven behey kāfir
Yiter atduñ cefā ṭaşın raḥm it
Burc degüldür beden behey kāfir
Arturup nāzuñı niyāzumdan
Ḳaçma benden igen behey kāfir
Ne sürürsin beni maḥallüñden
Bülbülüñdür çemen behey kāfir
Hele bir bī-güneh müsülmānı
N’olur öldürmeden behey kāfir
Beyt-i ma‘mūr iken dil-i Ca‘fer
Böyle yıḳmaḳ neden behey kāfir

In English

1. The soul has died of grief, you infidel; the body has turned into a coffin, you infidel.

2. O moon-faced one, if the end of your cruelty is the soul, take it; a lover does not cling to his life, you infidel.

3. Enough of the stones of cruelty you have thrown; have mercy; the body is no castle tower, you infidel.

4. Do not heighten your coyness at my pleading and run so far from me, you infidel.

5. Why do you drive me from your quarter? The meadow is the place of your nightingale, you infidel.

6. What harm if you let one sinless Muslim go without killing him, you infidel?

7. When Ca'fer's heart is the Frequented House, why tear it down like this, you infidel?

Literary and Historical Commentary

A Short Metre, a Sharp Address

The ghazal is written in a short pattern of the hafif metre of aruz, "fe‘ilātün mefā‘ilün fe‘ilün", and each line consists of only a few words. The refrain "behey kāfir" is a form of address; the interjection "behey" carries a tone of scolding, reproach and complaint and is still used in speech today, as in "behey adam" (you there, man). Calling the beloved "infidel" is common in divan poetry: the merciless beauty who sheds the blood of the Muslim lover and lays waste to hearts is given this name. The short lines and the harsh address repeated in every couplet turn the ghazal into a chain of reproaches. The rhyme rests on "-en": ten, seven, beden, igen, çemen, öldürmeden, neden; in the first line of the opening, "ġuṣṣadan" joins this sound as well.

Each couplet charges the beloved with another offence. The second finds the lover ready to give up his soul: if cruelty aims at taking life, let it take it; a lover does not cling to life anyway. The third compares the beloved's cruelty to the catapult stones hurled at castle towers; the lover reminds her that his body is no tower and cannot withstand them. The fourth sets coyness (naz) against pleading (niyaz): the more the lover pleads, the more the beloved heightens her coyness and runs away. "İgen" is an old Turkish word meaning "very, much".

Nightingale and the Frequented House

The fifth couplet is the protest of the lover driven from the beloved's quarter: her quarter is a meadow and he its nightingale; a nightingale is not driven from the meadow. The sixth uses the address "infidel" in its full sense: to kill a sinless Muslim is an infidel's deed. The pen-name couplet likens the lover's heart to the "Beyt-i ma‘mūr". In Islamic belief the Beytü'l-Ma'mûr, the Frequented House, is the house in heaven, believed to stand above the Kaaba, around which the angels circle; the word's sense of a "thriving, well-kept house" also sets up a contrast with the verb "to tear down". To tear down a thriving and holy house becomes the final proof of infidelity.

This ghazal of reproach did not find its way into Nazmî's anthology, and Erünsal's thesis records no significant difference of reading among the copies.

Bibliography

Online sources