Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Cān ki bir gün yüzlü māhuñ āsitānın yaṣdanur
Bendedür ḫāk-i der-i şāh-ı cihānın yaṣdanur
Rāḥat olur baş ḳoyup bālin-i devlet üstine
Kim ki zānū-yı ḥabīb-i dil-sitānın yaṣdanur
Bir gümüş ṭāḳa cemāli şemsesi taṣvīr olur
Sā‘idi üzre düşüp dilber ki yanın yaṣdanur
Türk-i tīr-endāzı kim cān ile dil ṣayyādıdur
Uyḳuya varmış kemīn-gehde kemānın yaṣdanur
İşigin kim bekleyüp yatur güzeller dilberüñ
Ṣan melā’ik Ca‘ferā ‘arş āsitānın yaṣdanur

In English

1. The soul that leans its head on the threshold of a sun-faced moon is a servant laying his head on the dust of the door of the king of the world.

2. Whoever lays his head on the knee of the heart-stealing beloved rests, having laid his head on the pillow of fortune.

3. When the beloved leans her side on her arm, the sun-shaped medallion (şemse) of her beauty seems painted in a silver arch.

4. The Turkish archer (the eye), hunter of soul and heart, has fallen asleep in his ambush and leans on his bow.

5. O Ca'fer, the beauties who lie keeping watch at the beloved's threshold seem like angels leaning on the threshold of the Throne of God.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Five Ways of Leaning

In every couplet someone different leans on something different; the refrain "yaṣdanur" means leans, lays one's head: the soul on the beloved's threshold, the lover on the beloved's knee, the beloved on her own arm, the eye on its bow, the beauties on the beloved's threshold. The rhyme sits on "-ānın": āsitānın, cihānın, dil-sitānın, yanın, kemānın, āsitānın; the repetition of "āsitān" (threshold) in the first and last couplets sets the ghazal within a frame. At the beginning the threshold is the lover's place, at the end the beauties'.

The first two couplets build a palace order between threshold and knee. The soul that lays its head on the beloved's threshold is like a servant rubbing his face on the dust of the king's door; whoever lays his head on the beloved's knee has laid it on the "pillow of fortune". "Devlet" here carries the senses of both good fortune and sovereignty: the knee turns into a cushion of the throne.

Medallion and Sleeping Archer

The third couplet rests on a term of the decorative arts. The şemse is a sun-shaped ornamental motif used on book covers, ceilings and domes. When the beloved leans on her white arm, her face resembles a şemse worked inside a silver arch; the arm is the silver arch, the face the sun motif. The beloved's eye in the fourth couplet is the "Turkish" archer who hunts souls and hearts; he has fallen asleep and leans on his bow in his ambush. The closed eye is the sleeping hunter, the curve of the brow the bow he leans on. In the copies this couplet's "cān ile dil" acquires a number: Erünsal's thesis gives "bir cān u dil" for the Paris copy and "yüz cān u dil" (a hundred souls and hearts) for the Hâlet Efendi and Ayasofya copies.

Erünsal gives the pen-name couplet among Câfer Çelebi's examples of simile: the beauties waiting at the beloved's threshold are likened to the angels standing at the threshold of the Throne (Arş), the throne of God. The beloved's door is thus made equal with the highest gate of heaven, and the likeness to the king's door at the beginning of the ghazal reaches its furthest point. Nazmî's anthology passes over this ghazal.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • İsmail E. Erünsal (ed.), Tâcî-zâde Ca‘fer Çelebi Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yay., 2018 (e-book), p. 343, ghazal no. 35. 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. 60 (simile). 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. 35 (variants). https://era.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/17182

Online sources