Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Gördi çün bād-ı ṣabā bu zülf ü ruḫsāruñ senüñ
Oldı rūz u şeb benüm bigi hevādāruñ senüñ
Pertev-i ḥüsn ü cemālüñden hemīşe ey ṣanem
Berḳ urur billūrveş ahcār-ı dīvāruñ senüñ
Ḫasta olmaz çün bihiştüñ ey perī merdümleri
Bāġ-ı ḥüsnüñde ‘acebdür çeşm-i bīmāruñ senüñ
Yūsufa dīnār ile kimse degülken müşterī
Olmış idüm rūy-ı zerd ile ḫarīdāruñ senüñ
Yaraşur Ca‘fer saña ger sözde siḥr eyler disem
Ol perīyi çünki tesḫīr itdi güftāruñ senüñ

In English

1. When the morning breeze saw these tresses and this cheek of yours, it became, day and night, like me, your ardent lover.

2. O idol, from the radiance of your beauty and loveliness the stones of your wall forever flash like crystal.

3. O peri, since the people of Paradise are never sick, it is a wonder that in the garden of your beauty there is your sick eye.

4. When no one was a buyer for Joseph even with dinars, I had become your purchaser with my yellow face.

5. O Ca'fer, it would suit you if I said "he works magic in words"; for your speech has bewitched and captured that peri.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Buying Joseph with a Yellow Face

The fourth couplet rests on the market scene of the story of Joseph. Joseph, thrown into the well by his brothers, was afterwards sold as a slave in Egypt. Câfer Çelebi turns this scene around: when no buyer came forward for Joseph even with dinars, the lover became a purchaser of the beloved "with his yellow face". The yellowed face has the colour of a gold coin; the lover has no gold in his hand, but his face is like gold, and with this face he sets out to buy the beloved. Joseph is the model of beauty in divan poetry; to show the beloved as more precious than Joseph, it is said that even Joseph found no buyer.

The ghazal carries the same refrain as ghazal 94: every couplet ends in "senüñ" (yours). This time the rhyme is built on "-ār": ruḫsāruñ, hevādāruñ, dīvāruñ, bīmāruñ, ḫarīdāruñ, güftāruñ. There is a play on words in the opening couplet. In Arabic "hevā" means both air, wind, and desire, passion; and "hevādār" means a lover, an ardent devotee. The morning breeze, which is nothing but air, on seeing the beloved's tresses and cheek has become her "hevādār" like a lover.

A Sick Eye in Paradise

The third couplet rests on an idea also used in the third couplet of ghazal 92: the people of Paradise are never sick. The beloved's beauty is a garden of Paradise, yet in that garden there is a languid, "sick" eye; this is presented as a contradiction. The light of the beloved's beauty, in the second couplet, strikes the stones of the walls of her house, and the stones sparkle like crystal.

The poet addresses himself in the pen-name couplet. His words have bewitched that peri, have performed "tesḫīr" on her; tesḫīr is the bringing of jinn and peris under command by prayers and spells. Since a peri can be captured only by magic, it may be said that Ca'fer's speech is magic. The likening of poetry to magic is a known boast in divan poetry. In the opening couplet the Paris copy reads "gibi" for "bigi" and the Ayasofya copy "perīşānuñ" for "hevādāruñ". The ghazal is missing from Nazmî's anthology.

Bibliography

Online sources