Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Ehl-i diller yüzüñe cennet-i a‘lā didiler
Sāye-i ḳaddüñe hemsāye-i Ṭūbā didiler
Her nefesde lebüñ iḥyā-yı memāt itdügi-çün
Dem-i cān-perverüñe hemdem-i ‘Īsā didiler
İşidenler baña cevr itmege ḳaṣd itdügini
Yoḳ degül saña vefā itmeye meyli didiler
Varaḳ-ı ṣūret-i zībānı görüp ehl-i naẓar
Defter-i ḥüsnüñe mecmū‘a-i ma‘nā didiler
Ġam-ı zülfüñle çü düşdi ḳara sevdālara dil
Baña Mecnūn oḳıyuben saña Leylā didiler
Ġayrla sen mehi bir gördügine zāhid-i şehr
Giceden gündüzi farḳ itmedi a‘mā didiler
Sūz ile sözde çü gösterdi kerāmet Ca‘fer
Anuñ erbāb-ı kemāl adını Şeyḫī didiler

In English

1. The people of heart called your face "the highest Paradise" and the shadow of your stature "the neighbour of the Tûbâ tree".

2. Because your lips revive the dead with every breath, they called your life-giving breath "the companion of Jesus' breath".

3. Those who heard that you meant to torment me said, "she is not without an inclination to keep faith with you".

4. The people of discernment, seeing the page of your lovely face, called the register of your beauty "an anthology of meanings".

5. When the heart fell into black passion with grief for your tresses, they called me "Mecnûn" and you "Leylâ".

6. Because the town's ascetic saw you and the moon as one, they said, "he could not tell night from day; he is blind".

7. When Ca'fer showed a miracle in speech with the burning of love, the masters of perfection named him "Şeyhî".

Literary and Historical Commentary

To Be Called Şeyhî

The pen-name couplet is a boast and carries two meanings. To show a miracle (keramet) in speech is a state befitting the sheikhs of the Sufi orders; and so Ca'fer, who shows such a miracle, is called "Şeyhī", "of a sheikh, sheikh-like". The same word is the name of Şeyhî, the great poet of the early fifteenth century. Erünsal points to this couplet as the place where Câfer Çelebi takes pride in being likened to Şeyhî by the masters of perfection. That the poet who criticizes Şeyhî in the Heves-nâme for not observing the rules of eloquence should use his name in the divan as a measure of praise sets the different tones of the two works side by side.

The refrain "didiler" (they said, they called) reports the verdict of a group in each couplet: the people of heart, those who heard, the people of discernment, the townsfolk, the masters of perfection. The poet does not give the verdict himself but records it from others' mouths; the style of the ghazal therefore resembles a series of testimonies. In the first couplets the beloved's face is likened to the highest Paradise, the shadow of her stature to the shade of the Tûbâ tree, her breath to the breath of Jesus that raises the dead. The conceit of the third couplet runs the other way: even the beloved's intention to torment the lover is taken as a sign of her interest in him; cruelty, too, is a kind of faithfulness.

Leylâ, Mecnûn and the Blind Ascetic

The fifth couplet merges the blackness of the tresses with black passion (kara sevda), and the lover and the beloved take the names of Leylâ and Mecnûn. The sixth mocks the ascetic: he saw the beloved and the moon as the same, though the beloved's face belongs to the day and the moon to the night; so the people call him blind, unable to tell night from day. In the Paris, Hâlet Efendi and Ayasofya copies the couplet turns into a question; Erünsal's thesis has them read "ide mi" instead of "itmedi".

Erünsal counts the third and seventh couplets among the rare examples of eye rhyme. In Arabic script the words "meyli" and "Şeyḫī" end, like the rhymes of the other couplets, "a‘lā, Ṭūbā, ‘Īsā, ma‘nā, Leylā, a‘mā", with the letter "ى"; but in pronunciation they give the sound "-ī", not "-ā". Nazmî's anthology records the ghazal as a response to Nizâmî's poem beginning "Yüzüñe ehl-i nazar cennet-i a‘lâ didiler"; Câfer Çelebi's opening repeats the first line of the model, saying only "ehl-i diller" (people of heart) instead of "ehl-i naẓar" (people of discernment). Müftîzâde and Nazmî also joined the same group with one poem each.

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. 338-339, ghazal no. 29. 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. 49 (Şeyhî), 66 and note 294 (eye rhyme). 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. 29 (variants). https://era.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/17182

Official sources

Online sources