Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mefā‘ilün fe‘ilātün mefā‘ilün fe‘ilün

Ḳapuñda bir nefes ol kim itüñle hem-demdür
Bu ad ile ḳamu ḫalk içre key mükerremdür
Firāḳuñ ile boyum ḥalḳa oldı ḫātem-vār
Başumda seng-i melāmet nigīn-i ḫātemdür
Dehānı rāzı baña keşf olınmasa ne ‘aceb
Cihānda kim ola k’ol sırr-ı ġayba maḥremdür
Hemīşe nām-ı şerīfüñ dilümde olsa n’ola
‘Aceb mi ezber idersem çün İsm-i a‘ẓamdur
Ḫayāl-i çeşm ü ḳad ü zülf ü la‘lüñ ile müdām
Cihān gözüme görinmez ġarīb bir ‘ālemdür
Lebi-yle dişleri naẓmı bu serv-i lāle-ruḫuñ
Dehān-ı ġoncada gūyā ki ‘ıḳd-ı şebnemdür
Unutma Ca‘feri ġamzeñ ḫadengi zaḫmından
Kim ol anuñ cigeri yarasına merhemdür

In English

1. Whoever is for a single breath the companion of your dog at your door is highly honoured among all people by that name.

2. Through separation from you my stature has bent into a ring like a seal ring; the stone of reproach on my head is the gem of that ring.

3. Is it any wonder if the secret of her mouth is not revealed to me? Who is there in the world who is privy to that secret of the unseen?

4. What wonder if your noble name is always on my tongue? Is it strange if I learn it by heart? For it is the Greatest Name of God.

5. With the image of your eye, your stature, your tresses and your lips, the world no longer appears to my eye; it has become a strange realm.

6. The row of lips and teeth of this tulip-cheeked cypress is like a necklace of dew in the mouth of a bud.

7. Do not forget Ca'fer, wounded by the arrow of your glance; for that arrow is the salve for the wound of his liver.

Literary and Historical Commentary

A Ring and Its Gem

The second couplet turns the lover's stature, which in divan poetry gains worth as it bends, into a jewel. Separation has bent the lover's stature into a ring; the stone of reproach (seng-i melāmet) that people throw at him is the gem (nigīn) of this ring. The lover stoned by the crowd becomes, stone and all, a seal ring. The suffix "-dür" serves as refrain and "-em" as rhyme: hem-dem, mükerrem, ḫātem, maḥrem, a‘ẓam, ‘ālem, şebnem, merhem.

The first couplet says that even keeping company for a breath with the dog at the beloved's door brings a man honour. In divan poetry the dog at the door is a creature the lover both resents and envies, for it never leaves the beloved's threshold. The beloved's mouth in the third couplet is so small that it cannot be seen; its secret is like the secret of the unseen (ġayb), the realm beyond human knowledge, and no one can be privy to it.

The Greatest Name and a Necklace of Dew

The fourth couplet leans on the language of prayer. The İsm-i A'zam is the name known as the greatest name of God, by which a prayer is believed to be answered; to know and learn this name by heart is to attain a secret. The lover never lets the beloved's name leave his tongue, for to him that name is the Greatest Name. Erünsal gives the sixth couplet among Câfer Çelebi's examples of simile: the lips of the tulip-cheeked beloved are a bud, and the teeth the dewdrops strung inside it; the row of lips and teeth resembles a necklace of dew (‘ıḳd-ı şebnem).

The last couplet makes the one who opens the wound the one who heals it. The arrow of the glance has wounded Ca'fer's liver, but the only salve for that wound is the same arrow; the lover asks the beloved not to forget him, that is, to wound him again. The variant recorded in the thesis does not touch the sense: in the fifth couplet the Paris, Hâlet Efendi and Ayasofya copies have "gözükmez" for "görinmez" (both "does not appear"). Nazmî passed the ghazal over in his anthology.

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. 354-355, ghazal no. 47. 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. 47 (variants). https://era.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/17182

Online sources