Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mef‘ūlü fā‘ilātü mefā‘īlü fā‘ilün

Yā Rab kim ola k’ilede benden peyām aña
Öpüp iki gözin ide biñ biñ selām aña
Ḥüsni ḳıyāmet oldıġına ḫoş güvāhdur
Rūy-ı bihişt ü ḳāmet-i ṭūbā-ḫırām aña
Görürse ‘āşıḳı ser-i kūyuñda reşk ider
Firdevs içinde zāhid-i ‘āli-maḳām aña
Ṣun bādeyi ki cennet-i kūyuñda sāḳīyā
Sen ḥūr elinden olsa kim ider ḥarām aña
Ġam nāvekinden irmemege Ca‘fere elem
La‘līn siper olur ḳadeḥ-i lāle-fām aña

In English

1. O Lord, who will there be to carry a message from me to her, to kiss both her eyes and give her a thousand greetings?

2. Her face like Paradise and her stature swaying like the Tûbâ tree are good witnesses that her beauty is the Resurrection. (Paradise and the Tûbâ tree will be seen only after the Resurrection; since both are seen in the beloved, her beauty has brought on the Last Day.)

3. Even the ascetic of high rank in Paradise would envy the lover he saw at the head of your street.

4. O cupbearer, pour wine in the paradise of your street; when it is offered by your houri's hand, who would call it forbidden?

5. So that no pain from the arrow of grief may reach Ca'fer, the tulip-coloured cup becomes a red shield for him.

Literary and Historical Commentary

The Street of Paradise

All the images of the ghazal gather around Paradise and the Resurrection. The second couplet is built like an argument: Paradise and the Tûbâ tree will be seen only after the Resurrection; since the beloved's face is Paradise and her stature the Tûbâ, her beauty must be the Resurrection itself. Here the word "ḳıyāmet" also brings to mind, through an association frequent in divan poetry, "ḳāmet", stature; a tall and swaying figure turns everything upside down like the Last Day breaking in.

The third and fourth couplets carry this Paradise into the beloved's street. The ascetic has received in Paradise, as a high rank, the reward for everything he avoided in the world; even so, he would envy the lover waiting at the head of the beloved's street. By the fourth couplet the cupbearer has turned into a houri. In Islamic belief the wine drunk in Paradise is not forbidden; when the street is Paradise and the cupbearer a houri, no one can call the wine offered there forbidden. This playful comparison of ascetic and lover, of forbidden and lawful, is common in the drinking ghazals of divan poetry; Câfer Çelebi ties it to a single image of place, "cennet-i kūy", the paradise of the street.

A Tulip-Coloured Shield

The pen-name couplet makes the cup a shield. The tulip-coloured cup, that is, the cup full of red wine, becomes a red buckler held up against the arrow of grief. "La‘līn" suggests both ruby red and the lips (la‘l); so the colour of the cup also recalls the beloved's lips. With grief as the arrow and wine as the shield, the gathering comes to resemble a battlefield in which the lover protects himself with this weapon.

The first couplet opens in a voice apart from the rest of the ghazal: the lover cannot reach the beloved and looks for a messenger. That the bearer of the greeting should "kiss both her eyes" is a courtesy of greeting expressing affection and respect. Three copies move the scene of the fourth couplet: Erünsal's thesis gives "cennet-i bezmüñde", "in the paradise of your gathering", for "cennet-i kūyuñda" in the Paris, Hâlet Efendi and Ayasofya copies, a reading that ties the line more directly to the cupbearer and the wine.

Bibliography

Online sources