Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Göñlümüñ uṣlanacaġın benüm Allāh bilür
‘Işḳı terk it diyeni düşmen-i bed-ḫvāh bilür
Öldürürseñ bu gün öldür beni yarına ḳoma
Ki benüm irecegüm yarına Allāh bilür
Aḳa aḳa yüzüm üstine yol itsün yaşum
‘Ālem-i vaṣla çü ‘ārifler anı rāh bilür
Gözlerüñi ḥarem-i cāna açılmış der-i nāz
Añlayan ḳaşlaruñı ḥācib-i dergāh bilür
Fikr alur Ca‘feri şol deñlü ḫayālüñle ki gāh
Yitürür bilmez olur kendüzini gāh bilür

In English

1. God knows when my heart will come to its senses; I take whoever says "give up love" for an ill-wishing enemy.

2. If you will kill me, kill me today, do not leave it for tomorrow; for God knows whether I shall live to see tomorrow.

3. Let my tears, flowing and flowing, make a road over my face; for the knowers of God know it as the road to the world of union.

4. One who understands knows your eyes as the opened door of coyness to the harem of the soul, and your brows as the chamberlain of that court.

5. Your image carries Ca'fer off into such thought that now he loses himself and knows nothing, now he knows.

Literary and Historical Commentary

"God Knows"

The first two couplets of the ghazal end with the same everyday phrase: "Allāh bilür", God knows. In the first the phrase is an indirect way of saying that the heart will never come to its senses; only God knows when it will, that is, perhaps never. In the second the same phrase expresses uncertainty in the face of death: the lover asks the beloved to kill him today, since God knows whether he will see tomorrow. The repetition of "Allāh" as a rhyme word in two couplets is one of the repeated rhymes Erünsal often finds in Câfer Çelebi's ghazals; here the repetition serves to set two different tones of the idiom side by side. The rhyme is carried by "-āh": Allāh, bed-ḫvāh, rāh, dergāh, gāh.

The tears of the third couplet make a road on the face, and in the eyes of the knowers of God this road leads to the world of union. In the fourth the beloved's face is pictured as a palace: the eyes are the door of coyness to the harem of the soul, the brows the chamberlain waiting at that door. In Arabic the word "ḥācib" means both eyebrow and the chamberlain who waits at a great man's door and admits visitors; the couplet joins the two senses in one word.

An Echo of Necâtî

Erünsal compares the pen-name couplet with a couplet of Necâtî and counts it among the examples that suggest a link between the two poets. Necâtî's couplet ends "Luṭf idüp ṣorar iseñ ḫasta Necātī ḥālin / Gāh olur bilmez olur kendüzini gāh bilür"; Câfer Çelebi's line is "Yitürür bilmez olur kendüzini gāh bilür". The two second lines are almost the same. According to Erünsal, Câfer Çelebi names Necâtî neither in the divan nor in the Heves-nâme, but his use of Necâtî's idioms, his response poems to him and his borrowing of some of his images suggest a link between them.

The Paris copy, as the thesis records, departs from the text in two places: "itsün ḳo" for "itsün" in the third couplet and "gözlerüñ ki" for "gözlerüñi" in the fourth. Nazmî did not include this ghazal in his collection.

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. 341-342, ghazal no. 33. 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. 51-52 (Necâtî), 65 (repeated 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. 33 (variants). https://era.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/17182

Online sources