Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: müstef‘ilün müstef‘ilün müstef‘ilün müstef‘ilün

Ṣañman beni ol ḳaş u göz yā tīr-i müjgān öldürür
Şol vaż‘-ı ḳallāşāne vü çāk-i girībān öldürür
Ḳolın ṣıġayup yay ala çün yār eline ben ḳulın
Ol sā‘id ü dest ü kemān bī-tīr ü peykān öldürür
Çün rāh-ı reyḥānī durur reyḥān-ı rūḥ olmaz ‘aceb
Def‘ itse ḍarb-ı aḳrebi dirler ki reyḥān öldürür
Ol la‘l-i rūḥ-efzā içün ġamdan helāk oldum yine
Ne şūr-baḫtam gör beni kim āb-ı ḥayvān öldürür
Ca‘fer nice ola diri ‘ālemde kim sen dilberi
Görse sevincinden ölür görmezse hicrān öldürür

In English

1. Do not think that brow and eye or the arrow of the lashes kill me; it is that devil-may-care manner and the torn collar that kill.

2. When she rolls up her sleeve and takes the bow in hand, that forearm, that hand and that bow kill me, her servant, without arrow or arrowhead.

3. It is a reyhânî melody; no wonder it is not basil for the soul; though it cures a scorpion's sting, they say basil kills.

4. For those life-giving ruby lips I have perished again of grief; see how ill-starred I am, that the water of life kills me.

5. How can Ca'fer stay alive in the world? If he sees you, beloved, he dies of joy; if he does not, separation kills him.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Things That Kill

Each couplet names another thing that kills the lover, and the refrain is "öldürür" (kills). The first couplet rejects the expected answer: what kills the lover is not brow, eye or the arrow of the lashes but the beloved's "ḳallāşāne" manner, that is, her carefree, vagabond bearing, and her torn collar. The beloved's behaviour takes the place of the ready weapons of divan poetry. The second couplet makes the beloved an archer: when she rolls up her sleeve and takes the bow in hand she kills without arrow or arrowhead, with her forearm, her hand and her bow alone. In the Paris copy, Erünsal's thesis notes, the line reads "ol sā‘id-i dest-i kemān". The metre is four "müstef‘ilün" of the recez metre; the rhyme falls on "-ān": müjgān, girībān, peykān, reyḥān, ḥayvān, hicrān.

The third couplet compares two kinds of "reyhan". One is a sweet-smelling herb, basil, good for the soul; the other is "rāh-ı reyḥānī", a mode or melody called reyhânî. Among the people it was said that basil cures a scorpion's sting but in some cases kills; the couplet rests on this belief and reports its end as hearsay, "dirler ki", "they say". The full meaning of the couplet is not clear; the rendering follows this reading. The lover's ill luck in the fourth couplet is told through a paradox: the water of life, the water of immortality, that is, the beloved's lips, kills him.

A Turkish Pen-Name Couplet

Erünsal cites the pen-name couplet in two places. In the first he gives it as an example of couplets built almost entirely of Turkish words: "Ca‘fer nice ola diri ‘ālemde kim sen dilberi / Görse sevincinden ölür görmezse hicrān öldürür." In the second he treats the same couplet from the point of view of aruz and shows how the pronunciation of Turkish words changes as they are fitted to the metre. The thought of the couplet is plain too: whoever sees the beloved dies of joy, whoever does not dies of separation; for the lover it is impossible to live between the two. In the Hâlet Efendi and Ayasofya copies "sevincinden" (from joy) appears as "sevünmekden" (from rejoicing). Nazmî's anthology did not take in this 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. 366-367, ghazal no. 60. 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. 58 (couplets of Turkish words), 64 (aruz and pronunciation). 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. 60 (variants). https://era.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/17182

Online sources