Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Ḳırmızı aṭlas yaḳalu cübbe-i zerd ile yār
Gül budaġıdur kim üstinde gül-i nesrīni var
Ḫil‘at-i nīlüfer ile bu gül endāmı yine
Dir görenler kim bezenmişdür bahār ile bahār
Ḳabrüm üzre gelse bu vaż‘ ile ol cān diyeler
Bir ṣaru şem‘ ile zeyn olmış kimüñdür bu mezār
Ḳırmızı ṣanmañ yaḳasın kim leṭāfet kesb idüp
Gün yüzinden gösterür ‘aks-i ruḫın āyīne-vār
Bu ḳabā ol ‘āşıḳa beñzer ki ṣarmaşmış saña
Ḳanlu yaşı ġarḳ idüp ruḫsārını ey gül-‘ıẕār
Cāme-i zerd ile seyr eyler felekde āfitāb
Beñzer almışdur bu mehrūdan libāsı müste‘ār
Bir gümüş naḫl idi ḳaddi daḫi mahbūb olmaga
İtdi līmūnī ḳabāyile bu naḫli zer-nigār
Keh-rübādur ol lebi la‘lüñ meger kim cāmesi
Her ṭarafdan cezb ider ‘āşıḳları bī-iḫtiyār
Ḥāṣılum Ca‘fer hemīndür eşk-i sürḫ ü rū-yı zerd
Baña bu serv-i ḳabā-pūşumdan oldur yādigār

In English

1. The beloved, in a yellow robe with a collar of red satin, is a rose branch on which a white dog rose has opened.

2. Those who see this rose-bodied one again in a water-lily-coloured robe say, "spring has been adorned with spring".

3. If that dear soul came to my grave dressed like this, people would say, "whose is this grave adorned with a yellow candle?"

4. Do not think his collar is red; it has grown so fine that, like a mirror, it shows the reflection of his cheek from his sun-like face.

5. O rose-cheeked one, this robe resembles a lover who has wrapped himself round you, his face drowned in bloody tears.

6. The sun goes about the sky in a yellow garment; it seems to have borrowed its dress from this moon-faced one.

7. His stature was already a silver sapling; to be more lovely still he has turned this sapling, with a lemon-yellow robe, into a gold-adorned nahıl.

8. His ruby lips are amber; and his garment must be so too, for it draws lovers to it from every side against their will.

9. Ca'fer, all that I have gained, all that is left to me as a keepsake from this robed cypress, is this: red tears and a yellow face.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Yellow Robe, Red Collar

The ghazal is a description of dress and tells what the beloved is wearing with a concreteness rarely seen in divan poetry. The beloved wears a yellow robe with a collar of red satin; in another couplet a water-lily-coloured robe is named, in another a lemon-yellow kaftan. These colours govern all the images of the ghazal. The yellow robe and red collar of the first couplet make a rose branch, and on top of the branch the white face has opened like a dog rose (nesrin). In the third the same yellow robe joins the thought of death: if the beloved came to the lover's grave dressed like this, he would look like a yellow candle burning at the head of the grave. In the sixth even the sun's yellow light is a garment borrowed from the beloved.

The fourth couplet sets up an ingenious invented cause (hüsn-i ta'lil): the redness of the collar comes not from the colour of the cloth but from the collar, shining like a mirror, reflecting the beloved's red cheek. In the fifth the robe itself becomes a lover: the yellow robe clasping the beloved tightly is a yellow-faced lover, and the red collar the bloody tears running down his face.

Nahıl and Amber

The word "naḫl" in the seventh couplet means both sapling and the ornamental tree made of wax and decorations that was carried at weddings and festivities. The beloved's stature, like a silver sapling, becomes with the lemon-yellow robe a gold-adorned nahıl. Amber appears in the eighth couplet as the stone that, when rubbed, draws light things to itself: the beloved's ruby lips and yellow garment draw lovers like amber; the yellow colour of amber also matches the colour of the robe. With no refrain, the ghazal rests its rhyme on "-ār": yār, bahār, mezār, āyīne-vār, ‘ıẕār, müste‘ār, zer-nigār, iḫtiyār, yādigār.

The pen-name couplet gives the colours of the ghazal back to the lover: the red and yellow of the beloved's dress are the only keepsake left to him, as his red tears and his yellow face. Erünsal's thesis lists a few small variants: the Hâlet Efendi copy reads "bir" for "ol" in the fifth couplet, and the Hâlet Efendi and Ayasofya copies "yaşa" for "yaşı"; the Paris copy writes "olmışdur" for "almışdur" in the sixth and "merġūb" for "maḥbūb" in the seventh. Nazmî's collection leaves out this ghazal of dress.

Bibliography

Online sources