Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mef‘ūlü fā‘ilātü mefā‘īlü fā‘ilün

Anda ki Ḥaḳ güzellere ḳāmet virüp durur
Ḳāmet yirine saña ḳıyāmet virüp durur
Tefsīr-i ṣufḥ-ı ḥüsn ideliden kelāmuma
Şekker lebüñ ḥadīs̱i ḥalāvet virüp durur
Ḳaşı hilāl-i ‘īd-i za‘īf ü nahīf idüp
Mihr-i cemāli şemse ḥarāret virüp durur
Rāżī olup cefāya dil anuñla ḫoş geçer
Allah aña ne ḳūt u ḳanā‘at virüp durur
Şöhret bulursa Ca‘ferüñ eş‘ārı vechi var
Sūz-ı derūnı sözine ḥālet virüp durur

In English

1. Where God has given the fair their stature, He has given you, instead of stature, the Day of Resurrection.

2. Since my words began to comment on the page of beauty, the speech (hadith) of your sugar lips has been lending them sweetness.

3. Her brow has left the crescent of the feast weak and thin, and the sun of her face has given the sun its heat.

4. The heart, content with cruelty, gets on well with it; what sufficiency and contentment God has given it.

5. If Ca'fer's poems gain fame, there is a reason for it: the burning of his heart has given his words a state of rapture.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Stature and Resurrection

One of the favourite sound games of divan poetry starts the ghazal off: "ḳāmet" (stature) and "ḳıyāmet" (Resurrection). God has given the fair their stature; to the beloved He has given, instead of stature, the Resurrection. The beloved's stature is so tall and her swaying so overwhelming that it throws everything into confusion like the Last Day. Erünsal cites this opening as an example of Câfer Çelebi's extended rhymes (iltizam), in which the letters before the final sound also agree: "ḳāmet" and "ḳıyāmet" rhyme on the whole of "-āmet". The refrain of the ghazal is "virüp durur" (has given, is giving) and its rhyme the sound "-et": ḳāmet, ḳıyāmet, ḥalāvet, ḥarāret, ḳanā‘at, ḥālet.

The second couplet fits the terms of Qur'anic commentary and hadith to the beloved. The poet counts his own words a commentary on the page of beauty; what lends that commentary its sweetness is the "hadith" coming from the beloved's sugar lips. The word "ḥadīs̱" means both speech, talk, and the sayings of the Prophet; the couplet is a professor's conceit that likens his poetry to a scholar's commentary on a text.

Crescent, Sun and Contentment

Two heavenly bodies lose strength beside the beloved in the third couplet. Her brow has left the crescent of the feast weak and thin beside its own slenderness; the brightness of her face is the source that gives the sun its heat. The fourth couplet changes tone: the heart is content with cruelty and gets on well with it; the poet ties this to the contentment God has given the heart. The heart that accepts cruelty as its daily bread is pictured like a contented dervish.

The pen-name couplet is a sentence about the poet's own fame: if Ca'fer's poems become known, the reason is the state that the burning of his heart lends to his words. The Paris copy shortens the construction here, reading "sūz-ı derūn sözine" for "sūz-ı derūnı sözine", as the thesis records. Nazmî's anthology does not record the 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), pp. 346-347, ghazal no. 39. 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. 65-66 (extended 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. 39 (variant). https://era.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/17182

Online sources