Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fā‘ilātün Fā‘ilātün Fā‘ilün

Yine rif‘at buldı bād-ı luṭf ile
Bāġ-ı iḳbālüñ nihāl-i nevberi
Ya‘ni kim ol serv-i büstān-ı kerem
Kim bulur andan cihān zīb ü feri
Baş çeküp gül-zār-ı devletden yine
Ḳadr ile eflāke irgürdi seri
Kimdür ol dirseñ eger iy nām-dār
Gülsitān-ı devletüñ verd-i teri
Ḥüsn-i ḫulḳ ile Muḥammed’dür velī
Nām ile Aḥmed seḫāda Ḥaydarī
Rūm-ili ḫayline defter-dār olup
Oldı ehl-i devletüñ ser-defteri
Yüz sürüp Fażlī semendi pāyına
Devlet ile göricek ol serveri
Didi tārīḫin beşāret eyleyüp
Aḥmedā yümn-ile olduñ defterī (sene 954)

In English

1. The young sapling of the garden of fortune has risen once more on the wind of grace;

2. That is, the cypress of the garden of bounty, from which the world takes its ornament and lustre,

3. Has shot up once more from the rose garden of fortune and raised its head to the heavens with its worth.

4. O man of renown, if you ask "Who is he?": he is the fresh rose of the rose garden of fortune.

5. In fine character he is Muhammad; in name he is Ahmed, and in generosity he resembles Haydar, that is, Ali.

6. Becoming defterdar to the forces of Rumelia, he has become the head of the register, that is, the foremost, of the men of state.

7. When Fazlî saw that leader in fortune, he rubbed his face at the feet of his horse

8. And, giving the good news, spoke its chronogram: "O Ahmed, with good fortune you have become defterdar" (954).

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a chronogram (tarih manzumesi) of eight couplets (beyit). The last line, "Aḥmedā yümn-ile olduñ defterī", gives the year of the event by the ebced system; according to Mustafa Özkat the date is 954 (1547), and like all the chronogram lines of the divan it is arranged by the "târih-i tam" method. The metre is the "fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün" pattern of the remel family; the rhyme is the sound "-eri": nevberi, feri, seri, teri, Ḥaydarī, ser-defteri, serveri, defterī. The pen name (mahlas) appears in the seventh couplet.

Özkat publishes the poem as the third chronogram of the divan. It is found in two manuscripts: in the Fazlî divan section (fol. 228b) of a miscellany in the Hazine collection of the Topkapı Palace Museum Library, and in miscellany no. 314 of the Âşir Efendi collection of the Süleymaniye Library (fol. 90b). In the Süleymaniye copy the poem appears, under the heading "Ḳıṭ‘a fi't-Tārīḫ", within Fazlî's work entitled "Tehniyet-nāme-i Ḥażret-i Aḥmed Çelebi bin Meḥmed Pāşā Defter-dār-ı Tīmārhā-yı Rūmili Şud". In the Hazine copy the second line of the sixth couplet reads "Oldı ehl-i devletüñ vird-i teri". In the edition the Arabic-script form of the chronogram line is also given under the last couplet.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The first four couplets of the poem are built on the image of the garden. Ahmed Çelebi is the young sapling of the garden of fortune, the cypress of the garden of bounty, the fresh rose of the rose garden of fortune; he rises on the wind of grace and raises his head to the heavens. The sapling's shooting up is the poetic counterpart of advancement in office; Özkat counts the idiom "baş çekmek" (to shoot up, to rise) among the poet's idioms. In the fifth couplet there is a play on names: the man praised is Muhammad in character, Ahmed in name and Haydarî in generosity. Muhammad and Ahmed are names of the Prophet, while Haydar is the epithet of Ali.

In the sixth couplet a play of sound and meaning is built between "defter-dār" and "ser-defter": Ahmed Çelebi has become defterdar and the "ser-defter", the head of the register, that is, the foremost, of the men of state. The word "defterī" in the chronogram line continues the same field. In the seventh couplet the poet rubs his face at the feet of the horse of the man praised; this is a convention of divan poetry expressing devotion.

Historical Context

According to Özkat, the poem was written to express the joy felt at the appointment of Ahmed Çelebi as defterdar of the timars of Rumelia in 954 (1547). Fazlî felt great affection and devotion for this man and on the same occasion composed a tehniyetname in mixed verse and prose. A tehniyetname is a work congratulating someone on an event such as appointment to a new office; Fazlî's consists of pieces of verse and prose in Arabic, Persian and Turkish supported by verses of the Qur'an and hadith, and contains, besides this chronogram, a ghazal and a kaside. The only known copy of the work is in the Süleymaniye miscellany.

Özkat writes that he does not know exactly who the Ahmed Çelebi of the tehniyetname was. Historical sources mention an Ahmed Çelebi, son of Zağanos Mehmed Paşa, one of the viziers of Mehmed the Conqueror, who served as chief defterdar under Bayezid II, Selim I and Süleyman; he held the office twice, once in 905-907 (1499-1502) and again from the reign of Selim I until 927 (1521). According to Özkat, if the Ahmed Çelebi of the tehniyetname is this man, he must have been appointed to the office for the third time in 954; otherwise he is someone else. In 954 Fazlî was secretary in Şehzade Mustafa's divan at Amasya. The poem shows that during his Amasya years the poet also kept up his relations with statesmen outside the prince's court.

Bibliography

  • Mustafa Özkat, Kara Fazlî'nin Hayatı, Eserleri, Edebî Kişiliği ve Dîvânı (İnceleme-Tenkitli Metin), MA thesis, Marmara University Institute of Turkic Studies, Istanbul 2005, pp. 278-279, chronogram no. 3 (Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Hazine, fol. 228b; Süleymaniye Library, Âşir Efendi 314, fol. 90b); also pp. 34-35 (the Tehniyetname), p. 60 (on the chronograms) and p. 91 (idioms), https://katalog.marmara.edu.tr/veriler/yordambt/cokluortam/5E/T0051713.pdf.
  • Hasan Aksoy, "Kara Fazlî", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 24, Istanbul 2001, pp. 360-361, https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/kara-fazli.

Online sources