Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün

Gözüm yaşına baḳmazsın baña senden ‘ināyet yoḳ
Bunı bildüm ki ey mehrū sitāremde sa‘ādet yoḳ
Yüzine ebr-i zülf olsun gelüp her yañadan perde
K’ıraḳdan görmege daḫi o māhı bende ṭāḳat yoḳ
Egerçi māhrūlarda çoġ olur servḳāmetler
Boyuñ Ṭūbā ṭapuñ ḥūrī bu gün senden ḳıyāmet yoḳ
Gören bīhūş olur kimse temāşā idemez anı
Yüzine ġoncaveş burka‘ ṭutunmasun ki ḥācet yoḳ
Eger var ise bir nesne cihānda ḥadd ü pāyānsuz
Belā-yı ‘ışḳdur Ca‘fer k’aña hergiz nihāyet yoḳ

In English

1. You do not look at the tears of my eye; there is no favour for me from you. O moon-faced one, I have understood that there is no good fortune in my star.

2. Let the cloud of your tresses come and be a veil over your face from every side; for I have no strength to see that moon even from afar.

3. It is true that among the moon-faced there are many of cypress stature; but your stature is Tûbâ, your being a houri; today there is no doomsday but you.

4. Whoever sees her swoons, no one can gaze at her; let her not hold a veil to her face like the bud, there is no need.

5. O Ca'fer, if there is anything in the world without bound or end, it is the affliction of love; it has no end at all.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Not Looking at One's Tears

The opening couplet begins with an idiom still in use today: "gözünün yaşına bakmamak", not to look at someone's tears, means to show no pity, no mercy. Câfer Çelebi works the idiom word for word as well: the beloved does not look at the tears really flowing from the lover's eye. The second line ties this pitilessness to the stars. "Sitāre" is a star, and "sa‘ādet" both happiness and a stellar position the astrologers held to be auspicious; the lover has understood that there is no luck in his own star. Before the refrain "yoḳ" (there is no) the rhyme words end in "-et": ‘ināyet, sa‘ādet, ṭāḳat, ḳıyāmet, ḥācet, nihāyet.

Erünsal shows this opening couplet among the examples of Zâtî's drawing on Câfer Çelebi's ghazals. The opening of ghazal 641 in Zâtî's divan repeats Câfer Çelebi's second line together with its rhyme and refrain: "Güzeller çıḳdılar seyre bile ol māh ṭal‘at yoḳ / ‘Aceb gün görmedük şaḫsam sitāremde sa‘ādet yoḳ". According to Erünsal, Zâtî wrote seven kasides praising Câfer Çelebi to win his favour and composed responses to his ghazals; this opening is one of the places where he took a line from Câfer Çelebi almost unchanged.

A Tûbâ Stature and Doomsday

The third couplet is woven with words of Paradise and the hereafter. The beloved's stature is the Tûbâ tree of Paradise, her being a houri; today there is no "doomsday" but her. The word "ḳıyāmet" means both the end of the world and a great tumult, and in sound it is akin to the word "ḳāmet" (stature). Cypress-tall beauties are many; but the stature that turns the world into doomsday is the beloved's alone.

The bud of the fourth couplet is like a beauty holding a veil to her face; the lover says the beloved has no need of this, since whoever sees her swoons anyway and cannot look. The pen-name couplet ends the ghazal with the words "nihāyet yoḳ", there is no end; if there is anything boundless in the world, it is the affliction of love. In the second couplet the Paris copy reads "oldı" for "olsun", and the "o māhı" of the same couplet becomes "bu māhı" in the Paris, Ayasofya and Hâlet Efendi copies. The Hâlet Efendi copy has "çoḳ" for "çoġ olur" in the third couplet and "aña" for "k'aña" in the last. Nazmî did not put the ghazal in his anthology.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • İsmail E. Erünsal (ed.), Tâcî-zâde Ca‘fer Çelebi Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yay., 2018 (e-book), pp. 389-390, ghazal no. 87. 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), pp. 54-56 (Zâtî's drawing on Câfer Çelebi; Zâtî, ghazal 641). 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. 87 (variants). https://era.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/17182

Online sources