Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Tā ‘araḳ-rīz oldı gīsū-yı perīşānuñ senüñ
Şebnem ile tāze vü terdür gülistānuñ senüñ
Yüz sürer şol deñlü ‘āşıḳlar der ü dīvāruña
Kim gören ṣanur zer-endūd olmış eyvānuñ senüñ
Cān ki vardur tende gūyā mürdedür ṭābūtda
Şöyle bī-ṭākat ḳılubdur anı hicrānuñ senüñ
Ġamzenüñ bir demde biñ cān alduġı yitmez mi dāll
‘Ayn-ı fitne olduġına çeşm-i fettānuñ senüñ
Ebter oldı nüsḫası gül defterinüñ Ca‘ferā
Çıkdı çün rengīn ḫayālāt ile dīvānuñ senüñ

In English

1. Ever since your dishevelled locks began to drip with sweat, your rose garden has been fresh and moist with dew.

2. Lovers rub their faces so much on your door and walls that whoever sees it thinks your hall has been overlaid with gold.

3. The soul that is in the body is like a corpse in a coffin; separation from you has made it so feeble.

4. Is it not proof enough that your bewitching eye is the very eye of mischief, that your glance takes a thousand lives in a moment?

5. O Ca'fer, since your divan came out with its colourful images, the copy of the rose's notebook has been left incomplete.

Literary and Historical Commentary

A Hall Overlaid with Gold

The second couplet makes architectural decoration out of the lovers' yellowed faces. The lovers have rubbed their faces so often on the beloved's door and walls that their yellow complexions have soaked into the walls, and the hall looks as if it were overlaid with gilding. "Zer-endūd" means overlaid with gold; the gilded decoration of the halls of palaces and mansions becomes something made from the lovers' yellowed faces. The lover's rubbing his face on the beloved's threshold is a known gesture of humility and devotion in divan poetry; the couplet shows the accumulated result of that gesture.

Every couplet ends in "-uñ senüñ", with "senüñ" (yours) as the refrain: perīşānuñ, gülistānuñ, eyvānuñ, hicrānuñ, fettānuñ, dīvānuñ. The core of the rhyme is "-ān". The beloved's dishevelled locks have broken into sweat in the opening couplet, and the drops have fallen on her cheek; the cheek is a rose garden, and the sweat that garden's dew.

The Eye of Mischief

The fourth couplet is built in the language of proof. "Dāll" means evidence, proof. That the glance takes a thousand lives in a moment proves that the beloved's eye is "‘ayn-ı fitne". The Arabic word "‘ayn" means both eye and the very thing itself, its essence: the eye is both the eye of mischief and mischief itself. The soul in the body, in the third couplet, is a corpse laid in a coffin; separation has left it that feeble.

The pen-name couplet turns to praise of the poet's own divan. When Ca'fer's divan, full of colourful images, came out, the copy of the rose's notebook was left "ebter", that is, defective, incomplete. The rose's petals are likened to the pages of a book; since the poet's divan is more colourful than that book, the rose's notebook could not be completed. Here the Ayasofya and Hâlet Efendi copies have "ḫayālātında" for "ḫayālāt ile". In Nazmî's anthology the ghazal belongs to the series of responses that follow Ahmed Paşa's ghazal given under the heading "Velehû", with the opening "Cânı ser-gerdân ider zülf-i perîşânuñ senüñ"; the "gīsū-yı perīşānuñ senüñ" in Câfer Çelebi's opening echoes this opening. His ghazal, coming after Necâtî and Kemalpaşazâde, is followed by Kemâl-i Zerd, Vasfî, Alî, Alâyî, Hilâlî-i Kazzâz, Şâmî, Halîlî, Medhî, Lâmi'î, Revânî and Zâtî.

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

Official sources

Online sources