Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Zülfinüñ zencīrine dil bir mehüñ dīvānedür
Kim çerāġ-ı ḥüsnine şem‘-i felek pervānedür
Ṣunsa sāḳī ehl-i ‘ışḳa lebleri cāmın n’ola
Meclis-i ‘uşşāḳdur bu bunda cān peymānedür
Gözlerümdür cāygāhı yiridür ḳan aġlasam
Kim niçün merdümler ile ol perī hemḫānedür
Ruḫlarınuñ ḫālidür beni giriftār eyleyen
Ravża-i cennetde lā-büd dām-ı Ādem dānedür
Zāhidā sen Ca‘ferā cevr ü cefāyı añma kim
Pīr-i ehl-i dildür ol meyli anuñ ġılmānedür

In English

1. The heart is a madman chained to the tresses of a moon; the candle of heaven (the sun) is a moth to the lamp of that moon's beauty.

2. What wonder if the cupbearer offers the people of love the cup of his lips? This is the lovers' gathering; here the cup is the soul.

3. His place is my eyes; it is fitting if I weep blood, for why does that fairy share a house with the pupils (the people) of my eyes?

4. What has made me captive is the mole on his cheek; in the garden of Paradise the snare of Adam is surely the grain.

5. O ascetic, do not speak to Ca'fer of torment and cruelty; he is the elder of the people of heart, and his inclination is towards beauties like the youths of Paradise.

Literary and Historical Commentary

An Opening Taken from Şeyhî

The opening couplet voices an idea taken from Şeyhî with the same image and almost the same words, and it is for this reason that Erünsal cites it. Şeyhî's ghazal 192 begins "Dil müselsel zülfüñüñ sevdāsı-la dīvānedür / Cān münevver ḥüsnüñüñ şem‘inde bir pervānedür"; in Câfer Çelebi's opening too the heart is a madman chained to the tresses, and beauty is a light around which the moth circles. Refrain and rhyme are shared as well: "-ānedür". Câfer Çelebi's difference is that he carries the moth up to the sky: the moth circling the lamp of the beloved's beauty is the candle of heaven, the sun.

The fourth couplet is also compared with a couplet from the same ghazal of Şeyhî. In Şeyhî the beloved's tresses and mole are the snare and the bait that catch the bird; in Câfer Çelebi the mole on the cheek is the grain that drove Adam out of Paradise. Here Erünsal says that the likeness rests on a shared tradition rather than on influence. He also sets the same couplet beside Mesîhî's couplet ending "Ḥalḳa-i cīm ile her bir noḳṭa dām u dānedür" and notes that the relation between the two poets remains uncertain. In Câfer Çelebi's couplet the mole is a grain of wheat; in Islamic tradition the fruit Adam ate from the forbidden tree is often said to have been wheat.

Merdüm and Peymâne

The second and third couplets are each built on a play on words. "Peymāne" means both cup and measure; at the lovers' gathering the cup is the soul, that is, each lover offers his soul like a cup or is measured by it. The word "merdüm" in the third couplet means both person and the pupil of the eye. The beloved's place is the lover's eyes, but there he shares a house with the pupils, the "people"; so the lover weeps blood from jealousy.

The meaning of the pen-name couplet is not entirely clear. The lover tells the ascetic not to speak to Ca'fer of torment and cruelty and presents him as "the elder of the people of heart"; the phrase "meyli anuñ ġılmānedür" in the second line can be read to mean that Ca'fer's inclination is towards beauties like the youths (ġılmān) of Paradise. The rendering rests on this reading. Erünsal's thesis shows no difference of note between the copies, and Nazmî's collection lacks 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. 353-354, ghazal no. 46. 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. 50 (Şeyhî), 54 (Mesîhî). 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. 46. https://era.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/17182

Online sources