Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Ey dil cefāya ḳalma ki şāyed zamān ola
Ger ‘ömr ide vefā bize ol mihribān ola
Vir naḳd-i cānı zülfine kim sūd-ı maḥżdur
Boynuma ṣar benüm eger andan ziyān ola
Öldürmez ise ġamzeñ olam vaṣluñ ile şād
Senden murād alam ger ecelden emān ola
Dil ḫod senüñ olupdur eger cevrden ġaraż
Cān almaġ ise ol da yoluñda revān ola
Ḳanḳı ġazelde kim aña Ca‘fer miyānuñı
Kim görse diye şi‘r-i muḫayyel hemān ola

In English

1. O heart, do not lose hope over cruelty; a time may come when, if life keeps faith, that beloved will show us kindness.

2. Pay the cash of your soul to her tresses, for it is pure profit; if any loss comes of this bargain, let it be on my neck.

3. If your glance does not kill me, I shall rejoice in union with you; if I am spared by death, I shall have my wish of you.

4. The heart is yours already; if the aim of your cruelty is to take my life, let that too flow away on your road.

5. In whatever ghazal Ca'fer mentions your waist, whoever sees it says at once, "this is a poem of fancy". (The beloved's waist is so slender as to be almost non-existent, so a poem describing it must rest on imagination.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

A Response to Ahmedî

Nazmî's Mecma'u'n-nezâ'ir places this ghazal at the head of the response poems written to Ahmedî's poem beginning "Her göz ki_anuñ hayâli bu serv-i revân ola". After Câfer Çelebi come Hamdî Çelebi, Necâtî, Derûnî, Dâ'î, Hayretî, Subhî, Şâmî, Revânî and Kevserî; five poems by Nazmî close the group. What the model poem and Câfer Çelebi's ghazal share is the metre, the rhyme "-ān" and the refrain "ola"; Câfer Çelebi builds his rhyme with the words zamān, mihribān, ziyān, emān, revān and hemān. Ahmedî, the poet of the İskender-nâme, died in 1412-13, and Hüsameddin counts him a native of Amasya; that Câfer Çelebi wrote a response to his ground a century later shows that Ahmedî's ghazals were still read in the gatherings of Bayezid II's reign.

The Language of Trade

A trading scene is set up in the middle of the ghazal. The lover of the second couplet invests his soul like ready cash (naḳd) in the beloved's tresses, calls it "sūd-ı maḥż", pure profit, and takes on himself the responsibility should there be a loss (ziyān): "boynuma ṣar", "wrap it round my neck". Because cash, profit and loss are used together, the couplet has a congruence of images (tenasüp); the blackness of the tresses and the dark passion of love (sevda) also stand behind this bargain. This language turns the counsel of patience in the first couplet into a concrete reckoning: life keeps faith, the beloved shows kindness, and the investment of the soul finds its return.

The third and fourth couplets continue the same reckoning with the prospect of death. Only if the lover escapes the arrow of the glance and death itself can he reach union; in the fourth couplet he gives up bargaining and is ready to let his soul flow away on the beloved's road if taking his life is her aim. "Revān" here suggests both going away like flowing water and the soul (revān) itself.

The pen-name couplet rests on a familiar motif of divan poetry: the beloved's waist (miyān) is so slender that it is counted as non-existent. A ghazal describing this waist must therefore be "şi‘r-i muḫayyel", a poem resting on fancy. The line also jokes with its own art, since a "muhayyel" poem is at the same time a poem rich in images and skilfully made. The Ayasofya copy alters the second line of the fourth couplet slightly: Erünsal's thesis records "al da yoluña" there in place of "ol da yoluñda".

Bibliography

Primary sources

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. 4 (variants). https://era.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/17182

Official sources

Online sources