Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Metre: fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün
Dünyada nāz uyḫusundan bir göz açmış yār yoḳ
‘Āşıḳa bildüm cihānda devlet-i bīdār yoḳ
Zülfinüñ bil baġlamış her tārı biñ cān almaġa
Ol sebebdendür ki anda bir girihsüz tār yoḳ
Çeşm ü ebrūsı ne yüzden girdi bāġ-ı ḥüsne kim
Cennet ehlinde ḫamīde-ḳāmet ü bīmār yoḳ
Gerçek imiş bu ısuz yirlerde olurmış perī
Yārdan ġayrı diyār-ı dilde gör deyyār yoḳ
İncinüp aġyārdan terk itmeñüz dildārı kim
Mārsuz genc ü dikensüz gül tütünsüz nār yoḳ
Bāġı yāruñ kūyına beñzetdi beñzer yāsemīn
Kim çıḳup yüz sürmedügi bir der ü dīvār yoḳ
Cenneti n’eyler ṭapuñsuz Ca‘fer ey ḥūrī-liḳā
Bülbül ol bāġı n’ider k’anda gül ü gülzār yoḳ
In English
1. In the world there is no beloved who has opened an eye from the sleep of coquetry; I have learned that for the lover there is no wakeful fortune in the world.
2. Know that every strand of her tresses has been bound to take a thousand souls; that is why there is no strand in it without a knot.
3. With what face did her eye and brow enter the garden of beauty? Among the people of Paradise there is none bent in stature and none sick.
4. So it is true that peris dwell in desolate places; see, in the land of the heart there is no inhabitant but the beloved.
5. Do not abandon the beloved because the rivals hurt you; there is no treasure without a snake, no rose without a thorn, no fire without smoke.
6. The jasmine has likened the garden to the beloved's street, and fittingly; for there is no door or wall it has not climbed and rubbed its face on.
7. O houri-faced one, what should Ca'fer do with Paradise without your presence? What should the nightingale do with a garden where there is no rose and no rose bed?
Literary and Historical Commentary
The Peri of Desolate Places
The fourth couplet rests on a popular belief: peris and jinn were believed to dwell in desolate, ruined places. The lover sees the truth of this belief in his own heart. The land of the heart is desolate, no one lives there but the beloved; and the beloved is the peri of this desolate place. Erünsal shows this couplet among those in which Câfer Çelebi attends, besides the meaning, to sounds resembling one another: "diyār" (land) and "deyyār" (inhabitant, anyone) are two words built on the same consonants, and they fall side by side in the line.
The rhyme ends in "-ār": yār, bīdār, tār, bīmār, deyyār, nār, dīvār, gülzār. The opening couplet sets two sleeps against each other. The beloved never wakes from the sleep of coquetry; and the lover's fortune is never awake either. "Devlet-i bīdār", wakeful fortune, is the name of good luck in divan poetry; here both are asleep.
No Treasure without a Snake
The second line of the fifth couplet strings three proverbs one after another: there is no treasure without a snake, no rose without a thorn, no fire without smoke. In popular belief buried treasures were guarded by snakes; the rose goes with its thorn, the fire with its smoke. What falls to the lover is not to abandon the beloved because of the rivals; for beside every beauty are found its thorn, its snake, its smoke. The third couplet goes to Paradise: the beloved's languid eye is sick and her brow is bent double; yet among the people of Paradise there is no one sick or stooped. The couplet asks how these two flawed beauties have entered the garden of beauty.
The sixth couplet turns the jasmine's climbing of walls into the behaviour of a lover. The jasmine has climbed all the doors and walls of the garden and rubbed its face on them; so its likening the garden to the beloved's street is fitting, since lovers too rub their faces on the doors and walls of that street. The thesis lists no variants for the ghazal, and it did not enter Nazmî's 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. 393-394, ghazal no. 92. 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. 66 (couplets built on similar sounds). 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. 92. https://era.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/17182
Online sources
