Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Gün yüzinde zülfin ol meh kim girih-gīr eylemiş
Bir gümüş ḳandīle gūyā müşk zencīr eylemiş
Arḳasına girmiş ebrūsı gözi bīmārumuñ
Ḫasta olmaġın ḳucaġında aña yir eylemiş
Zülf ü ḫaṭdan lāciverdī toz u müşgīn per urup
Ḥaḳ nihāl-i ḳaddiñi dil delmege tīr eylemiş
İki gül yüzlü öpüşse dir gören bezm ehlini
Şevḳden öldürmege bunlar aġız bir eylemiş
Rūy-ı zībāsın ḳara zülfi idinmiş zīr-i dest
Ca‘fer ol cādūyı gör kim māhı tesḫīr eylemiş

In English

1. That moon has knotted her tresses upon her sunlike face; it is as if she had hung a musk-coloured chain on a silver lamp.

2. The brow of my beloved with the ailing eye has taken the eye upon its back; because the eye is sick, it has made room for it in its lap.

3. God, fitting it with dark-blue dust and musk-scented feathers from your tresses and down, has made the sapling of your stature into an arrow to pierce hearts.

4. If two rose-faced ones kiss, whoever sees it says, "these two have put their mouths together to kill the company with longing".

5. Ca'fer, her black tresses have taken her lovely face under their hand; see that witch, which has bewitched and captured the moon.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Silver Lamp, Musk Chain

The opening couplet recalls the lamp of a mosque or palace. Lamps were hung from the ceiling on chains; the beloved's bright face is a silver lamp, and the black tresses knotted over the face are a musk-coloured chain fastened to it. Before the refrain "eylemiş" (has made) stands a rhyme in "-īr": girih-gīr, zencīr, yir, tīr, bir, tesḫīr. All the couplets of the ghazal turn the parts of the beloved's face into objects or persons: the tresses a chain, the brow a nurse opening its arms, the stature an arrow, the tresses a witch.

The beloved's languid, "sick" eye lies beneath the brow in the second couplet; the brow seems to have taken it on its back or drawn it into its lap, since the eye is ill and needs care. The third couplet describes the making of an arrow. The shaft of the arrow is the beloved's stature; the feathers fitted to it come from the tresses and the down, and the dark-blue dust is the deep colour of the down. God has made this arrow to pierce hearts.

Mouths Put Together

The fourth couplet is a jest resting on an everyday idiom. "Ağız birliği etmek", literally to make one mouth, still means to agree and say the same thing. When two rose-faced ones kiss, their mouths really are joined; and whoever sees it says they have "made one mouth" to kill those at the gathering with longing. The figurative sense of the idiom and the concrete picture of the kiss meet in one word. The pen-name couplet likens the tresses to a witch: the old belief that witches could draw the moon down from the sky and bewitch it finds its counterpart here in the tresses taking the moon-like face under their hand.

The variants in the thesis concern suffixes and word order: the Ayasofya and Hâlet Efendi copies read "bīmāruñuñ" for "bīmārumuñ" in the second couplet and "ḫaṭṭın" for "ḫaṭdan" in the third, and the "zīr-i dest" of the last couplet becomes "dest-zīr" in the Ayasofya copy. Nazmî's anthology does not include the ghazal.

Bibliography

Online sources