Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Ḳorḳaram ol serv-i gül-ruḫ va‘deye ide ḫilāf
Yā ġıyās̱e’l-müstaġīs̱īn neccinā mimmā neḫāf
Āh kim ben nā-tüvāna ‘ömre sürdi gitmedi
Ṣaçlarından inkisār ebrūlarından inḥirāf
Gül riyāżetle cemālüñ sırrını keşf itmege
Ġonca ḫalvet-hānesinde eylemişdür i‘tikāf
‘Işḳumuz ġıll-ı hevesden oldı gün geldükçe pāk
Rūşen oldı kim olurmış eskiyince bāde ṣāf
Arta ṭurmaḳda meh-i nev ḥüsnüñe öykünmegin
İki ḳat olup ider eksükligine i‘tirāf
Kāşkī bād-ı ṣabā olsam kimesne görmese
Gāh u bī-gāh itsem anuñ ka‘be-i kūyın ṭavāf
Ca‘ferā aġzı ser-i mū deñlü ancaḳ var iken
Gelse ḳīl ü ḳāle bir müşkil-güşādur mū-şikāf

In English

1. I fear that rose-cheeked cypress will break her promise. O Helper of those who cry for help, save us from what we fear.

2. Alas, for poor feeble me, all my life long the brokenness of her locks and the crookedness of her brows never went away.

3. The rose, to discover the secret of your beauty through austerity, has gone into retreat in the cell of the bud.

4. As the days went by, our love was purified of the dregs of desire; it became clear that wine grows clear as it ages.

5. The new moon, as it keeps growing to imitate your beauty, bends double and confesses its deficiency.

6. Would that I were the morning breeze and no one saw me; at all hours I would circle the Kaaba of her street.

7. O Ca'fer, since her mouth exists only to the size of a hair's tip, if gossip arises, a hair-splitter comes as the solver of the difficulty.

Literary and Historical Commentary

An Arabic Prayer

The second line of the opening couplet is in Arabic from start to finish and is a prayer: "Yā ghiyātha'l-mustaghīthīn najjinā mimmā nakhāf", that is, "O Helper of those who cry for help, save us from what we fear." The ordinary worry of the first line, that the beloved will break her word, is clothed by this prayer in the air of taking refuge in God before a great calamity. This play between exaggeration and solemnity is the wit of the opening. Eight rhyme words end in "-āf": ḫilāf, neḫāf, inḥirāf, i‘tikāf, ṣāf, i‘tirāf, ṭavāf, mū-şikāf.

The model is Sultan Bayezid's ghazal with the opening "Da‘vi-i hüsn eyleyüp gün vechi yok ger ura lâf", and Nazmî gives Câfer Çelebi's poem among those written on it. The opening couplet of the response by Muhibbî, which comes just before Câfer Çelebi, also ends in the same Arabic line: "‘Ahdine turmaz yine dil-ber va‘deye eyler hilâf / Yâ gıyâse'l-müstagîsîn neccinâ mimmâ nehâf". The two poets use the same prayer with the same rhyme and the same idea of breaking a promise; which took it from the other cannot be learned from the anthology. In the circle Câfer Çelebi is followed by Sürûrî-i Müderris, Yahyâ, Fehmî-i Saruhanî and Nazmî.

The Rose in Retreat

The third couplet is built in the language of Sufism. To discover the secret of the beloved's beauty, the rose has taken to austerity, a discipline that strains the self, and withdrawn into retreat (i‘tikāf) in the closed cell of the bud. The closed state of the bud is likened to the seclusion of a dervish withdrawn from the world; when the rose opens it will have discovered this secret. The second couplet names the curls of the locks with "inkisār" (breaking, heartbreak) and the arch of the brows with "inḥirāf" (crookedness, turning away); both words describe a shape as well as an attitude.

The fourth couplet applies to love the knowledge that wine grows clear as it ages. In the fifth the new moon, trying to grow, bends double and by this posture confesses its deficiency; "eksüklik" means both a fault and the moon's diminished state. The pen-name couplet turns the smallness of the mouth, the size of a hair's tip, into a difficulty that only a hair-splitting (mū-şikāf) mind can solve; the same play is seen in ghazal 76 too. The Paris copy differs in a few words, reading "küllī hevesden" for "ġıll-ı hevesden" in the fourth couplet, and in the last "ḳāl ü ḳīl" for "ḳīl ü ḳāl" and "güşāde" for "güşādur".

Bibliography

Primary sources

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. 84 (variants). https://era.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/17182

Official sources

Online sources