Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün fe‘ūlün

Yüzüñe ṣalduġınca sāye zülfüñ
Niḳāb eyler bulutdan aya zülfüñ
Buñarı çeşmümüñ deryā olupdur
Neheng olmışdur ol deryāya zülfüñ
Ḳaşuñla oldı peyveste muṣāḥib
Niçün baş ḳoşdı ol kec-rāya zülfüñ
Ḳomayup bir dem elden leblerüñi
Düşürdi cānları sevdāya zülfüñ
‘Aceb mi Ca‘fere baş eġmez ise
Ki ḫurşīd iledür hem-sāye zülfüñ

In English

1. As often as your tresses cast their shade upon your face, they put a veil of cloud upon the moon.

2. The spring of my eye has become a sea; your tresses have become a crocodile in that sea.

3. Your tresses have become the close companion of your brow; why have they put their heads together with that crooked-going one?

4. Never letting your lips out of their hand for a moment, your tresses have cast souls into melancholy passion.

5. Is it any wonder if your tresses do not bow their head to Ca'fer? For they are the neighbour of the sun.

Literary and Historical Commentary

The Neighbour of the Sun

The pen-name couplet is built on the word "hem-sāye". In everyday use the word means neighbour; but literally it means "one whose shade is the same, who shares the same shade". The tresses stand beside the beloved's sunlike face; they are the neighbour of the sun and cast their shade in the same place as it. It is no wonder that tresses with so lofty a neighbour do not bow their head to Ca'fer. The word "sāye" (shade) of the opening couplet thus returns in the last as "hem-sāye", and the ghazal begins and ends with shade.

The metre is short; the pattern Mefā‘īlün Mefā‘īlün Fe‘ūlün is known mostly from mesnevis. The refrain is "zülfüñ" (your tresses), and each couplet shows the beloved's tresses in another guise: a shade, a cloud, a crocodile, the brow's companion, a hand that casts souls into passion. The rhyme moves between "-āye" and "-āya": sāye, aya, deryāya, kec-rāya, sevdāya, hem-sāye.

A Crocodile in the Sea of Tears

The spring flowing from the lover's eye has become a sea in the second couplet; and the beloved's black, curling tresses are a "neheng", a crocodile or sea monster, swimming in this sea. The reflection of the tresses in the sea of tears looks like a dark creature coiling in the water. Next, in the third couplet, the tresses have fallen beside the brow and become its close companion. The brow is crooked and is called "kec-rā", one who goes a crooked way, who has strayed; the lover reproaches the tresses for "putting their heads together" with such a one, that is, for forming a partnership with it.

The fourth couplet uses the word "sevdā" in two senses: the passion of love and the black bile of old medicine. Because the black tresses never let go of the lips even for a moment, they have cast souls both into love and into black melancholy. The only variant the thesis shows is one of spelling: the Paris and Ayasofya copies write the "kec-rāya" of the third couplet differently. This short ghazal is not in Nazmî's anthology.

Bibliography

Online sources