Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün fe‘ūlün

Yazılmış gördi bir taṣvīr-i dil-keş
Ḥarīr-i nīlgūn üzre münaḳḳaş
Yazılmış ġurreden ebrūsı ġarrā
O ṭurre sünbül-i terden muṭarrā
Geyürmiş māha ẓulmetden ẕırıhlar
Gül üzre müşgden yazmış girihler
Dürerden dişlerin zībende yazmış
Güneşden ruḫların tābende yazmış
İdicek ruḫların gülgūne-i āl
Ḳalemden ṭamlamış bir noḳṭa-i ḫāl
Anı yazduḳda üstād-ı hüner-ver
İdinmiş kirpüginden ḳıl ḳalemler
Ruḫı şem‘in yazıcaḳ cān eritmiş
Gözin taḥrīr iderken siḥr itmiş
Feminden gerçi kim olmış nişān ol
Ṣayılur yoḳ ḥisābında hemān ol
Nice öyküne aña naḳş-ı Çīnī
Ne cānı var ola anuñ ḳarīni
Ḳalupdur künc-i deyr içre ṣanemler
Ne ṣūretle ola aña berāber

In English

1. He saw a heart-stealing picture painted, worked upon blue silk.

2. In it the bright eyebrows were drawn below the forelock; that forelock was adorned with fresh hyacinth. (The forelock is likened to the hyacinth, the scent and curl of the hair to the hyacinth flower.)

3. The painter had clad the moon in coats of mail made of darkness and drawn knots of musk upon the rose. (The moon and the rose stand for the face, darkness and musk for the black hair.)

4. He had drawn the teeth adorned from pearls and the cheeks shining from the sun.

5. As he coloured the cheeks with red rouge, the dot of a beauty spot had dripped from the pen.

6. When that skilful master drew this picture, he made himself brushes of hair from his own eyelashes.

7. To paint the candle of the cheek he melted his soul; while drawing the eye he worked magic. (In Latîfî's edition "artmış" is read in place of "eritmiş".)

8. Of the mouth there was indeed a trace, yet it was still counted as nothing. (The beloved's mouth is so small that it is reckoned as non-existent.)

9. How could the painting of China imitate it? What soul has it, that it should be its equal?

10. The idols have been left standing in the corner of the temple; by what form could they ever equal it?

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

These ten couplets (beyit) are the only passage that has come down to us from Fazlî's lost mesnevi Hümây u Hümâyûn. They are in mesnevi form, each couplet rhyming within itself: dil-keş/münaḳḳaş, ġarrā/muṭarrā, ẕırıhlar/girihler. The metre is "mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün fe‘ūlün" of the hezec family. Mustafa Özkat notes that Âşık Çelebi and Kınalızâde say the work was written in the "baḥr-i recez", but that the quoted couplets are in this metre. Latîfî quotes the passage in his anthology, in the entry on Fazlî: "Ṣıfat-ı taṣvīrde bu birkaç beyt ol kitāb-ı meserret-fezādandur", that is, these few couplets on the description of the picture are from that delightful book. The text is as Özkat quotes it from Rıdvan Canım's edition, marked according to his own transliteration system. The word "eritmiş" in the first line of the seventh couplet reads "artmış" in Canım's edition.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The passage lists all the familiar elements of the description of the beloved in divan poetry as parts of a picture. Eyebrow, forelock, hair, teeth, cheek, beauty spot, eye and mouth are named one by one, each together with the material a painter uses. The eyebrows are "written" below the forelock, the teeth are drawn from pearls, the cheeks from the sun, and the beauty spot has become a drop of ink accidentally dripped from the pen. This last comparison is a poetic aetiology (hüsn-i talil) that finds a poetic cause for the existence of the beauty spot on the beloved's cheek. In the sixth couplet the painter's making brushes from his own eyelashes is a hyperbole (mübalağa) expressing the fineness of the picture.

In the second couplet the words "ġurre" (forelock), "ġarrā" (bright), "ṭurre" (lock of hair) and "muṭarrā" (adorned) are brought together by their likeness of sound and root; this is a play of paronomasia and derivation (cinas and iştikak). In the third couplet the contrasts of moon and darkness, of rose and musk, present the brightness of the face and the blackness of the hair in an antithesis (tezat). The eighth couplet rests on one of the well-known conceits of divan poetry, that the beloved's mouth is so small that it is reckoned as "non-existent". In the last two couplets the picture is compared with the famous works of the painters of China and with the idols in the temple; both fall short beside it. The words "naḳş-ı Çīnī", "ṣanem" and "deyr" form a congruence of images (tenasüp) connected with beauty and the art of painting.

Historical Context

Latîfî mentions Hümây u Hümâyûn as a book of five thousand couplets written "Ḫüsrev ü Şīrīn ṭarzında", in the manner of Khusraw and Shirin. According to Özkat, the work is Fazlî's first mesnevi and was written under the inspiration of the work of the same name by the Persian poet Khwaju of Kirman. Âşık Çelebi states that the work was written in the period when Fazlî was Zâtî's pupil, before he entered Şehzade Mehmed's divan, and that it was through it that Fazlî became known as a mesnevi poet; the same Âşık Çelebi finds his poetry of this period uneven and mediocre. The passage is therefore the only surviving example of a mesnevi from Fazlî's youth, before his Amasya years. E. J. W. Gibb writes that he never saw the work, and that Khwaju's story tells of the love of Humay, prince of the Land of the West, and Humayun, daughter of the Faghfur of China. The comparison of the picture with "naḳş-ı Çīnī" (the painting of China) in the ninth couplet seems to accord with this subject; but Latîfî does not state to which scene of the mesnevi the passage belongs or who saw the picture. No copy of the work has been found to this day.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Latîfî, Tezkiretü'ş-Şu'arâ ve Tabsıratü'n-Nuzamâ, ed. Rıdvan Canım, Ankara: AKM Publications, 2000, p. 434 (as quoted in Özkat).
  • E. J. W. Gibb, A History of Ottoman Poetry, vol. III, London 1904, pp. 109-110, https://archive.org/details/historyofottoman03gibbuoft.

Academic studies

Online sources