Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Eşk ḫūnīn itdi çehrem raḥm ḳıl ey sīm-ber
Ḳıymeti olur ziyāde sürḥ olıcaḳ çünki zer
Gerçi ḳullāb-ı maḥabbet ṣaldı dil yā ḳaşuña
Līk ḳurbān olduġum anuñ kemānın kim çeker
Geh gehī eyler tecellīler cemālüñ çün baña
Ẕerrece gelmezse n’ola çeşmüme şems ü ḳamer
Yād idüp ḫālini cān tenden revān oldı belī
Dāne cüst ü cūyına mādām mūr inden çıkar
Dem-be-dem āşüftedür sevdā-yı zülfüñden ṣabā
Ol daḫi Ca‘fer gibi beñzer hevādāruñ geçer

In English

1. O silver-bodied one, bloody tears have dyed my face red; have mercy, for gold rises in value when it turns red.

2. True, the heart has fixed the hook of love on the bow of your brow; but, my darling, who can draw that bow?

3. Since your beauty shows itself to me now and then, what wonder if sun and moon do not appear to my eye even as a mote?

4. Remembering her mole, the soul has, yes, left the body and gone; the ant, too, always leaves its nest in search of a grain.

5. The morning breeze is distraught at every moment with passion for your tresses; it, too, seems to pass by like Ca'fer as your devotee.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Red Gold

A reckoning of value comes first. The lover's face has turned yellow with grief; in divan poetry a yellow face is likened to gold. Bloody tears have dyed this yellow face red, and red gold is worth more than yellow gold. As he asks the beloved for mercy, the lover offers this reckoning as his reason: his suffering has turned his face into a more precious metal. The second couplet has a warm phrase from spoken Turkish: "ḳurbān olduġum", today's "kurban olduğum", my darling, one I would die for. The heart has fixed the hook of love on the bow of the brow, but who has the strength to draw that bow?

The fourth couplet rests on a small observation of nature. The beloved's mole is a grain (dāne); remembering that grain, the soul leaves the body, just as the ant leaves its nest in search of a grain. The word "belī" (yes) gives the couplet a tone of affirmation, of "indeed". By the last couplet the morning breeze, too, is distraught with passion for the beloved's tresses; since the word "hevādār" means both a devoted lover and one who travels through the air, the breeze and Ca'fer share the same epithet.

Şeyhî's Breeze

Şeyhî's ghazal beginning "Ey sabâ ger menzil-i cânâna kılursañ güzer" drew many responses in Nazmî's anthology, and Câfer Çelebi's is one of them. In the group, the responses of Sultan Bayezid, that is, Bayezid II, of Ulvî, Hafî, Kâsım Paşa, Hayretî and Kemalpaşazâde come before Câfer Çelebi; after him follow Şâmî, Resmî, Sürûrî-i Müderris, Süleyman the Magnificent, Atâ, Sabâyî, Münîr and Me'âlî. Şeyhî's model poem addresses the morning breeze; the distraught breeze in Câfer Çelebi's last couplet is a nod to this ground. The variant in the Paris copy leaves the sense untouched: according to Erünsal's thesis it has "gözüme" for "çeşmüme" (both "to my eye") in the third couplet.

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. 45 (variant). https://era.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/17182

Official sources

Online sources