Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Tīġ-i ḫūn-rīzüñ beni her dem şu deñlü pāreler
K’acıyup ḳan aġlar ey dilber benümçün yāreler
Gösterür surḥ eşrefīler tāze dāġı ‘āşıḳuñ
Bir ḳızıl manḳura almazlar velī meh-pāreler
Her ḥabāb-ı bādenün ḳalmış dimāġında hevā
Yād-ı la‘lüñle şarāba düşmiş ol āvāreler
Bulınup ḳan içre nāgeh ḳorḳudan her sīnede
Tīġüñüñ gizlendügi cānā cigerler pāreler
Zülfüñe dil baġlamış Ca‘fer gibi sünbüller āh
Ne ‘aceb sevdāya düşmiş bu kilimi ḳareler

In English

1. Your blood-shedding sword cuts me to pieces at every moment so badly that, O beauty, the wounds take pity and weep blood for me.

2. The lover's fresh wound shows red gold pieces; but the moon-fragments (the beauties) will not give even a red farthing for it.

3. A longing has stayed in the head of every bubble of wine; those vagrants fell into the wine at the memory of your lips.

4. O soul, in every breast the pieces of the liver are suddenly found in blood from fear; your sword lies hidden among them.

5. Ah, the hyacinths, too, have bound their hearts to your tresses like Ca'fer; is it any wonder if these black-blanketed ones have fallen into passion?

Literary and Historical Commentary

The Weeping of the Wounds

A reversal opens the ghazal: the lover has been cut to pieces by the sword, but it is not he who weeps but his wounds. The wounds take pity on him and weep blood. Erünsal cites this couplet as an example of the explanatory sentences Câfer Çelebi builds with the conjunction "ki"; the state described in the first line is explained in the second by a result beginning "k'acıyup". The refrain repeats the sound "-reler": pāreler (pieces), yāreler (wounds), meh-pāreler (moon-fragments), āvāreler (vagrants), ciğer pāreler (pieces of the liver) and ḳareler (black ones). The same word "pāre" keeps returning in different combinations.

The second couplet compares money and wounds. The lover's bloody wound is red and shining; it recalls the gold coin called eşrefî. Yet the beauties, the "moon-fragments", do not value this gold even at a red farthing. The eşrefî was a gold coin, the manḳur a copper one; the gap in value shows how cheap the lover's suffering is in the beloved's eyes. The bubbles on the surface of the wine in the third couplet are likened to drunken vagrants who fell into the wine remembering the beloved's lips; the air (hevā) inside the bubble is longing (hevā) itself.

The Black-Blanketed Ones

The pen-name couplet shows the hyacinths, too, binding their hearts to the beloved's tresses like Ca'fer. The dark hyacinths are pictured as people wrapped in black blankets, that is, poor and mournful in appearance, and it is no surprise that they have fallen into passion. The word "sevdā" means both love and black bile and completes the image of blackness.

Hafî's poem beginning "Yüzlerinden ref‘ idicek burka‘ ol meh-pâreler" is the ground of a crowded group of responses in Nazmî's anthology. After Muhibbî and Necâtî comes Câfer Çelebi; Kemalpaşazâde, Rızâyî, Amrî, Sâlikî, Zâtî, Şem'î, Nasûhî, Sühâyî, Le'âlî, Sehî, Özrî-i Kâdî, Hayâlî, Emrî, Mu'îdî, Bahârî-i Müderris, Hicrî, Derdî, Hilâlî and Nazmî follow him. Erünsal's thesis records two variants: the Paris copy has "cān u" for "cānā" in the fourth couplet, and the Hâlet Efendi copy "tāzeler" in place of "pāreler".

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. 339-340, ghazal no. 31. 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), p. 61 (the conjunction "ki"). 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. 31 (variants). https://era.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/17182

Official sources

Online sources