Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Sīnesin her kimse kim tīrüñ nişānı eylemez
Devlet anı ṭāyir-i baḫt āşiyānı eylemez
Āh-ı ‘āşıḳdan ṣaḳın kim ḥüsnüñüñ gülzārına
İtdügin ol bāġa bād-ı mihrecānī eylemez
Sen gereksin baña ġayruñ dilsitānından n’olur
Kimse kimse cānı ile zindegānī eylemez
Kim ḳıyabilür ki yāruñ dişleye şīrīn lebin
Müşkil olur cāna ḳıymaḳ ‘āḳil anı eylemez
Eldeyiken ḳadrini bil vaṣl-ı yāruñ Ca‘ferā
Çünki dünyā devletin Ḥaḳ cāvidānī eylemez

In English

1. Whoever does not make his breast a target for your arrow, fortune does not make into a nest for the bird of luck.

2. Beware of the lover's sigh; for what it does to the rose garden of your beauty the autumn wind does not do to a garden.

3. It is you I need; what is another's heart-stealer to me? No one lives by another's soul.

4. Who could bring himself to bite the beloved's sweet lips? It is hard to bring oneself to harm a soul; a man of sense does not do it.

5. O Ca'fer, while union with the beloved is in your hand, know its worth; for God does not make the fortune of this world eternal.

Literary and Historical Commentary

The Nest of the Bird of Luck

A belief about fortune underlies the first couplet. The bird of luck, a bird like the hümâ whose shadow makes king whomever it falls upon, makes its nest only in the breast of one who has made it a target for the beloved's arrow. The lover's wounded breast is a nest where fortune alights; the unwounded breast is luckless. The refrain is "eylemez" (does not make); "-ānı" carries the rhyme: nişānı, āşiyānı, mihrecānı, zindegānı, anı, cāvidānı.

The lover's sigh in the second couplet is more destructive than the leaf-stripping wind of autumn. "Bād-ı mihrecānī" is the wind of Mihrijan, the feast celebrated at the beginning of autumn in the Persian calendar, that is, the wind of the autumn season. The beloved should beware of the lover's sigh, for it wastes the garden of beauty more than the autumn wind could waste a garden. In another ghazal of the divan, too, the lover warns the beloved not to draw his sigh upon her; this couplet says the same thing with an image of the season.

To Bring Oneself to Harm a Soul

The third couplet ends with a sentence of life's wisdom: no one lives by another's soul. Other beauties mean nothing to the lover; he needs the beloved who is his own soul. The idiom "cāna ḳıymaḳ" in the fourth couplet faces two ways: both to take someone's life, to kill, and to harm the beloved called "soul". To bite the beloved's sweet lips would be to harm her, and a man of sense does not do it. Advice ends the ghazal: union must be valued while it is in hand, for the fortune of this world is not eternal. The copies in Erünsal's thesis do not part ways in any important respect over this text, and Nazmî's anthology does not include the poem.

Bibliography

Online sources