Fünûnî was a sixteenth-century poet from Kastamonu, known today above all for the five-stanza elegy he wrote on the killing of Şehzade Mustafa (Prince Mustafa) in 1553. His name rarely appears in the biographical anthologies of poets (tezkire): Ahdî and Gelibolulu Âlî give him as a native of Kastamonu, while he does not appear in Latîfî's anthology. Âlî's short and mocking entry makes up almost all the information about the poet. His elegy is one of three poems that recount from beginning to end the prince's march to Karaman and his killing in his father's tent.

Fünûnî's connection with Amasya is made through Prince Mustafa, the subject of his elegy. The prince was sanjak governor (sanjak-bey) of Amasya from 1541 to 1553; Fünûnî's elegy also describes how he set out with a great procession and reached Karaman. There is, however, no information that the poet was ever in Amasya or entered the prince's circle.

Life

In the section on poets of his Künhü'l-ahbâr, Gelibolulu Mustafa Âlî introduces Fünûnî with the words "Vilâyet-i Kastamonıdandur" (he is from the province of Kastamonu). According to Âlî the poet's nature was not without refinement, but he could not shake off the charge of theft and had made a habit of laying hands on everyone's property. Âlî adds a play on words: since the poet was the most skilful man of the age in that "art" (theft), it was as if he had chosen for this reason the pen name Fünûnî, meaning "master of arts and skills". Âlî relates that there was enmity between Fünûnî and a poet named Cân Memi. Cân Memi wrote a kıt'a satirising Fünûnî in a letter, and Fünûnî answered the news that Cân Memi had died on campaign with a kıt'a ending in the line "Didüm geçdi ise cân-ber-cehennem" (I said, if he has passed away, to hell with his soul).

Rıdvan Canım, editor of Latîfî's anthology, comparing the information Latîfî gives on poets' home towns with the other anthologies, notes that Fünûnî, given as a native of Kastamonu by Ahdî and Âlî, does not appear in Latîfî. Fünûnî's dates of birth and death, his real name and his profession are unknown. His elegy shows that he was alive in 1553.

The State of the Sources

Information about Fünûnî is scarce and rests on the entry of a single anthologist, written moreover in a mocking tone. Âlî's accusation of theft is given together with a witticism on the pen name; it is impossible to separate how much of it rests on a real event and how much on the anthologist's attitude towards the poet. That the poet of the elegy and the Fünûnî of Kastamonu mentioned by Âlî are the same person is not openly discussed in the sources; this identification rests on the rarity of the pen name and the agreement of the period. We could not find an entry under the name Fünûnî in the Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü.

His Poetry

Fünûnî's elegy for Prince Mustafa became known through the article Mehmed Çavuşoğlu published in 1981-1982. The text is on folios 173-174 of manuscript Nuruosmaniye 4962 in the Süleymaniye Library; folios 175-176 of the same manuscript contain the elegy of Rahmî of Bursa. The poem consists of five stanzas in the metre "fâ’ilâtün fâ’ilâtün fâ’ilâtün fâ’ilün"; the body of each stanza is a long series running on the same redif (refrain word), and the stanza closes with a separately rhymed couplet ending in the name "Mustafâ".

Recep Hasar counts Fünûnî, together with Mu'înî and Taşlıcalı Yahya, among the poets who recount the event from beginning to end. The elegy describes the prince setting out for Karaman with thousands of soldiers and his tutors, the royal banner raised, the viziers meeting him in procession and kissing his hand, his going sincerely into his father's tent and his dying as he struggled with one not fit even to keep the door. With the phrase "zen-i mekkâr" (deceitful woman) the poet points both to the heavens and, in Hasar's interpretation, to Hürrem Sultan; Maruf Çakır also cites this couplet as an example of double meaning (tevriye). In the last stanza the poet addresses the sultan, says that no one thought it reasonable that the prince's killers should remain alive, and ends the poem with a prayer that curses Mustafa's enemy.

The original text of the elegy, its couplet-by-couplet English prose rendering and a commentary are published as a separate article in this category. The kıt'a and couplet quoted by Âlî have been left outside the scope of this work, as they have no connection with Amasya or Prince Mustafa. The other elegies are described in our article Elegies for Prince Mustafa, and the prince's life in the biography Şehzade Mustafa.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Gelibolulu Mustafa Âlî, Künhü'l-Ahbâr'ın Tezkire Kısmı, ed. Mustafa İsen, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı (e-book), pp. 262-263, entry "Fünûnî".
  • Latîfî, Tezkiretü'ş-Şu'arâ ve Tabsıratü'n-Nuzamâ, ed. Rıdvan Canım, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı, 2018 (e-book), introduction, p. 23.

Academic studies

  • Mehmed Çavuşoğlu, "Şehzade Mustafa Mersiyeleri", İstanbul Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi Tarih Enstitüsü Dergisi, 12, 1981-1982, pp. 662-664 (as quoted in Hasar).
  • Recep Hasar, Türk Edebiyatı'nda Padişah ve Şehzade Mersiyeleri, MA thesis, Fatih Sultan Mehmet Vakıf Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, 2018, pp. 89, 93, 100, 102, 117-118, 459-463. https://hdl.handle.net/11352/2746
  • Maruf Çakır, "Sirâcî'nin Şehzade Mustafa Mersiyeleri", Kocatepe İslami İlimler Dergisi, 4(1), 2021, p. 15. https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/kiid/article/892994

Online sources