Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Ṣafḥa-ı ḫaddinde beñler var velī yoḳ daḫi ḫaṭ
Gerçi ‘ādetdür ki ḫaṭdan soñra yazılur nuḳaṭ
Gördüm aġyārı kenār-ı yāra cem‘ olmış didüm
Buldı ṣūret ma‘ni-yi lā ḫayre illā fi’l-vasaṭ
Tā belürdi ḫaṭṭ-ı zībāsı lebi düşdi dile
Mūcib-i şöhret belī Yāḳūta oldı ḥüsn-i ḫaṭ
Merdüm-i çeşmüm ruḫı āyīnesinde dilberüñ
Kendü ‘aksin gördi vü ḫālin ṣanup ḳıldı ġalaṭ
Eşkümi kūyından ol dilber niçün ırmaḳ diler
Ca‘ferā revnaḳ viren Baġdāda oldı çünki Şaṭ

In English

1. On the page of her cheek there are moles, but as yet no down; yet it is the custom for the dots to be written after the script.

2. Seeing the rivals gathered at the beloved's side, I said: the meaning of "there is no good except in the middle" has found its form here.

3. As soon as her lovely down appeared, her lip was on every tongue; yes, what brought fame to Yâkut was his fine script.

4. The pupil of my eye saw its own reflection in the mirror of the beloved's cheek and, taking it for her mole, was mistaken.

5. O Ca'fer, why does that beauty wish to drive my tears, this river, far from her street? It was the Shatt that gave Baghdad its splendour.

Literary and Historical Commentary

A Script Dotted in Advance

The opening couplet reverses a rule of the art of writing. In writing Arabic letters, the bodies of the letters are drawn first and the dots added afterwards. On the beloved's cheek, however, there are moles, that is, dots, but the down, the "hat", has not yet appeared: so the cheek resembles a page whose dots have been set before the script. The word "ḫaṭ" means both script and the down newly sprouting on the cheek, and throughout the ghazal these two meanings work together. The rhymes end in "-aṭ": ḫaṭ, nuḳaṭ, vasaṭ, ġalaṭ, Şaṭ.

Erünsal mentions the second couplet among the examples of Câfer Çelebi's setting well-known expressions and Arabic sentences between his lines. The phrase "lā ḫayra illā fi'l-vasaṭ" in the line means "there is no good except in the middle". The rivals have gathered at the beloved's side; but the good is in the middle, not at the edge. Thus the abstract sense of the saying "finds its form" in the picture of the rivals left at the margin. Since the word "kenār" also means embrace, the couplet carries the note of jealousy too.

Yâkut's Fine Script

The third couplet rests on a double meaning. "Yâkut" is both the red precious stone, that is, the beloved's lip, and the famous Abbasid calligrapher Yāqūt al-Musta'ṣimī. When the down appeared around the beloved's lip, the lip was on every tongue; just as the calligrapher Yâkut won fame through his fine script. The expression "ḥüsn-i ḫaṭ" is both fine handwriting and fine down. The pupil of the eye, in the fourth couplet, sees its own black reflection in the mirror of the cheek and takes it for a mole.

The word "ırmaḳ" in the pen-name couplet faces two ways: it is both a river and the verb "to send far, to remove". The beloved wants to send the river of the lover's tears far from her street; yet what beautifies Baghdad is the Shatt that flows through it. Nazmî includes the ghazal among twenty-three responses to Ahmed Paşa's ghazal with the opening "Gam degül bî-hâl olursa hüsnüñ evrâkında hat". Ahmed Paşa's opening couplet is also built on script and dots; Câfer Çelebi's opening answers this idea by adding the order of the dots. The thesis records two variants: in the third couplet the Ayasofya and Hâlet Efendi copies read "lebüñ" for "lebi", and in the fourth the Hâlet Efendi copy has "yüzi" for "ruḫı".

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • İsmail E. Erünsal (ed.), Tâcî-zâde Ca‘fer Çelebi Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yay., 2018 (e-book), p. 383, ghazal no. 80. 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), p. 59 (proverbs and Arabic sentences). 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. 80 (variants). https://era.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/17182

Official sources

Online sources