Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Ne gülüñ ḫırmenine bād-ı seḥergāh eyler
Āhum alma ḳ’anı gül-çehrelere āh eyler
Başı üstinde yüri her güzelüñ kim şāne
Dem-be-dem başları üstinde saña rāh eyler
Reng-i ruḫsāruñı artursa n’ola cām-ı şarāb
Çünki gül şāhidi meşşāṭalıġın māh eyler
Meyde gör Ḥaḳ ne kerāmet ḳodı kim bir demde
Her gedāyı yedi iklīme ṭutar şāh eyler
Ca‘fer az olsa ne ṭañ vaṣl zamānı felegüñ
Böyledür ‘ādeti gül ‘ömrini kūtāh eyler

In English

1. Whatever the dawn wind does to the harvest of the rose, my sigh does to the rose-faced; take care not to draw my sigh upon you.

2. Walk upon the head of every beauty; for the comb is forever opening a road for you on their heads.

3. What wonder if the cup of wine heightens the colour of your cheek? The moon, too, plays the tirewoman to the rose.

4. See what miracle God has placed in wine, that in a moment it makes every beggar a king ruling the seven climes.

5. Ca'fer, is it any wonder if the time of union is short? Such is the way of fortune; it makes the life of the rose brief.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Do Not Draw My Sigh

The ghazal opens with a warning that rests on the everyday idiom "ah almak", to draw someone's sigh. To draw a person's sigh is to wrong him and incur his curse. The lover warns the beloved: as the dawn wind scatters the harvest of the rose, so the lover's sigh scatters the rose-faced beauties. The falling of rose petals in the morning wind becomes an example of the power of a sigh. The refrain is "eyler" (does); the rhyme sounds "-āh": seḥergāh, āh, rāh, māh, şāh, kūtāh.

The second couplet carries a conceit built on the comb. The comb walks upon the heads of the beauties and opens a road by parting the hair; it advises the lover to walk upon the head of every beauty, since the comb has opened a road for him there. The respectful sense of the idiom "to have a place upon one's head", that is, to be honoured, also joins the image. The cup of wine in the third couplet heightens the colour of the beloved's cheek; as moonlight adorns the rose, wine adorns the cheek.

Wine That Makes a Beggar King

The fourth couplet states a familiar thought of divan poetry: wine in a moment makes a beggar king of the seven climes. The passing sense of greatness that drunkenness brings is called here a "miracle" (keramet); since the word recalls the marvels of saints, it also lends the couplet a light irony. Fortune's well-known habit gives the ghazal its end: the rose's life is short, and fortune keeps union short like the rose.

Short as it is, the ghazal varies a good deal from copy to copy; the variants in Erünsal's thesis are these: the Hâlet Efendi copy reads "üstine" for "üstinde" in the second couplet, and the Hâlet Efendi and Ayasofya copies "yüzi" for "yüri"; in the third couplet, instead of "n'ola", the Paris copy has "ne ṭañ" and the Hâlet Efendi and Ayasofya copies "ne ġam"; "Her gedāyı" in the fourth appears in the Manchester copy as "ser-gedāyı". Nazmî left it out of his anthology.

Bibliography

Online sources