Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün

Derūnum āteş-i derde yaḳubdur mihr-i mehrūlar
Bu cismümden çıḳan yir yir tütünlerdür degül mūlar
Teferrüc itmege bāg-ı cemālin alnı tākından
Egilmiş düşmege ṭurur temāşā it ol ebrūlar
Hevā-yı ḳadd-i yār ile delürmiş diyü gülşende
Nihāl-i serv ayaġına gümüş zencīr urur ṣular
Ḥarīfüm gözlerüñ fikri düşüpdür vādī-yi ġamda
Beyābānlarda Mecnūna olubdur mūnis āhūlar
Zümürrüd ḳor ḫat-ı sebzi öñine ṣaçlarınuñ kim
Gezend irgürmeye ḫalḳa görüp ol mār gīsūlar
Ḫamīde şāḫ gülşende idüp aḳ güller ārāyiş
Gümüş yollu kemer itmiş ḳuşanmaġa semenbūlar
Didüm āb-ı ‘ıẕāruñda niçün zülfeynüñ olmaz ter
Didi Ca‘fer ‘aceb olmaz ṣuya batmasa cādūlar

In English

1. Love for the moon-faced has burned my inner self with the fire of pain; what rises here and there from my body is not hair but smoke.

2. Look, those brows have bent down from the arch of her forehead to gaze at the garden of her beauty, and seem about to fall.

3. The waters, saying that in the rose garden the cypress sapling has gone mad with longing for the beloved's stature, put a silver chain on its foot.

4. My friend, the thought of your eyes has fallen into the valley of grief; in the deserts the gazelles have become companions to Mecnûn.

5. She sets her green down before her tresses as an emerald, so that those snake-like locks may not harm people.

6. When white roses adorned the bent branch in the rose garden, the jasmine-scented made a silver-striped belt to gird themselves.

7. I said, "Why do your tresses not get wet in the water of your cheek?" She said, "Ca'fer, no wonder if witches do not sink in water."

Literary and Historical Commentary

A Chain on the Cypress

The ghazal advances through a series of ingenious invented causes (hüsn-i ta'lil). First, the hairs on the lover's body are smoke rising here and there from the fire of pain that burns him within. In the second the beloved's brows are spectators who have bent down from the arch of her forehead to gaze at the garden of beauty and seem about to fall; the curved shape of the brow is taken as the cause of this bending. In the third the water flowing at the foot of the cypress in the rose garden resembles a silver chain: the cypress has gone mad with envy of the beloved's stature, and as madmen are chained, the waters put a silver chain on its foot. The refrain is "-lar", the rhyme a long "-ū": mūlar, ebrūlar, ṣular, āhūlar, gīsūlar, semenbūlar, cādūlar.

The fourth couplet returns to the story of Leylâ and Mecnûn. Mecnûn took to the deserts and made friends with gazelles; the lover who thinks of the beloved's gazelle-like eyes has also fallen into the valley of grief, and the image of those eyes has become his companion like the gazelles. The bent branch of the sixth couplet, adorned with white roses, is a silver-striped belt that the jasmine-scented beauties have had made to gird themselves.

Emerald and Witch

The fifth couplet rests on an old belief: the emerald was believed to blind a snake's eyes and render it harmless. The beloved's tresses resemble snakes; the down on her cheek is green and has been set before the tresses like an emerald, so the snake-like tresses cannot harm people. Question and answer bring the ghazal to an end. The lover asks why the tresses do not get wet in the "water", that is, the brightness, of the cheek; the beloved answers: witches do not sink in water. The tresses are likened to a witch for their blackness and their power to enchant, and the belief that a witch will not sink in water is the ground of the answer. The couplet gives, from the beloved's own mouth, a mocking explanation of her beauty.

The Hâlet Efendi and Ayasofya copies differ in two verbs: Erünsal's thesis has them read "ḳıl" for "it" in the second couplet and "batmazsa" for "batmasa" in the last. Nazmî's anthology does not take the ghazal in.

Bibliography

Online sources