Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fe‘ilātün Fe‘ilātün Fe‘ilātün Fe‘ilün

Yine iy şāh kenār eyledi çoḳ gevher-i ḫāṣ
Baḥr-ı eşkümde olup merdüm-i çeşmüm ġavvāṣ
Cān baġışlar kişiye mürde iken ‘Īsī-vār
Meyde iy ṣūfi-i ‘āmī dime kim var mı ḫavāṣ
‘Işḳ ḥalvet-gehine ‘aḳl n’ola bulmasa yol
‘Āmm neyler ṣanemā anda k’ola meclis-i ḫāṣ
İy ḳamer ger göre bu ḥüsn ile yüzüñ[i] güneş
Zühre mihrüñde ola ẕerre-veş oldum raḳḳāṣ
Zer gibi ḫāliṣ olam dir iseñ iy Fażlī eger
Ḳalbüñi pūte-i ‘ışḳ içre erit hem-çü raṣāṣ

In English

1. O king, the pupil of my eye has once more become a diver in the sea of my tears and brought many choice pearls to the shore.

2. (Wine) bestows life on a man when he is dead, as Jesus did; O ignorant Sufi, do not say, "Has wine any virtue?"

3. O idol (O beauty), what wonder if reason finds no way into love's chamber of seclusion? When there is a select gathering there, what can the common folk do?

4. O moon, if the sun were to see your face with this beauty, Venus would (dance) like a mote in your sun (in your love); I too have become a dancer. (The construction of the couplet is obscure.)

5. O Fazlî, if you say, "Let me be pure as gold", melt your heart like lead in the crucible of love.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a ghazal (gazel) of five couplets, written in the "fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilün" pattern of the remel family of aruz (quantitative metre). It has no redif; Özkat counts this ghazal among those with rich rhyme. The rhyme is formed by the sound "-āṣ" in the words "ḫāṣ, ġavvāṣ, ḫavāṣ, ḫāṣ, raḳḳāṣ, raṣāṣ"; the word "ḫāṣ" rhymes twice, in the opening couplet and in the third couplet. The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet. The ghazal is the hundred and first in Özkat's edition and is found only in the Fazlî divan section (fol. 243b) of the miscellany in the Hazine collection of the Topkapı Palace Museum Library. It is the ghazal that opens Özkat's section of the letter ṣād. The suffix in square brackets in the fourth couplet is Özkat's addition. It is not known to whom or when it was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

In the opening couplet tears are likened to a sea and the pupil of the eye to a diver bringing pearls up from this sea; the likening of teardrops to pearls is familiar in divan poetry. Since the word "merdüm" means both the pupil of the eye and a human being, it fits easily into the comparison with a diver. In the second couplet wine is like the breath of Jesus, which raised the dead. The word "ḫavāṣ" in the couplet means both "virtues, properties" and "the elect", and forms an antithesis with the Sufi being called "‘āmī" (ignorant, one of the common folk); this double entendre (tevriye) and antithesis are our own observation. The third couplet continues the same opposition: in the seclusion of love there is a "meclis-i ḫāṣ" (select gathering), while reason stands in the place of the "‘āmm" (common folk) and finds no way in. Özkat cites this couplet as an example of the idiom "yol bulmak" (to find a way).

The fourth couplet is obscure; in particular, the construction of the second line is not clear. As far as it can be understood, the couplet rests on the image of motes dancing in sunlight: even Venus, thought of as the musician and dancer of the heavens, dances like a mote in the beloved's sun, and the lover too has become a "raḳḳāṣ" (dancer). The word "mihr" means both sun and love. The last couplet uses an image from the goldsmith's craft: gold is refined by being melted together with lead in the crucible. The lover's heart must melt like lead in the crucible of love so that he himself may be pure as gold. Since the word "ḳalb" also means debased, counterfeit coin, it forms an antithesis with the word "ḫāliṣ" (pure, of full standard); this is our own observation.

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. 343-344, ghazal no. 101 (Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Hazine, fol. 243b); also p. 69 (rhyme), p. 93 (idioms) and pp. 119-120 (description of the manuscripts), https://katalog.marmara.edu.tr/veriler/yordambt/cokluortam/5E/T0051713.pdf.

Online sources