Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mef‘ūlü Fā‘ilātü Mefā‘īlü Fā‘ilün

İy dil çü būm pāyı yeter bu ḫarāba baṣ
Şeh-bāz-ı evcsin ḳademüñ nüh-ḳıbāba baṣ
Terk-i ta‘alluḳ eyle çü ‘Īsī mücerred ol
Pāyuñ şeref yüzinde ser-i āfitāba baṣ
Maḳṣūd menziline dilerseñ göñül vüṣūl
Pāy-ı ‘azīmeti yüri rāh-ı ṣevāba baṣ
Ayıḳ gelüp baṣarsa ayaḳ ṣūfi meclise
Başdan getürsin ayaġı sāḳī şarāba baṣ
Ḥas dir nihāyetī saña iy ṣūfi ehl-i ‘ışḳ
Pāyuñ kerāmetiyle gerek rūy-ı āba baṣ
Gey ḫüsrevī kelāmuñı Key-ḫüsrev ol göñül
‘İzzetde pāyuñı ser-i Efrāsiyāb’a baṣ
Ma‘mūre-i ḥaḍāyir-i ḳudse ‘azīmet it
İy Fażlī pāy-ı himmeti besī ḫarāba baṣ

In English

1. O heart, it is enough that, like the owl, you set foot in this ruin (the world); you are the falcon of the heights, set your foot on the nine domes (the nine heavens).

2. Like Jesus, give up attachment (to the world) and be solitary and unbound; set your foot with honour on the head of the sun.

3. O heart, if you wish to reach the station of your purpose, go, set the foot of resolve on the right road.

4. If the Sufi comes sober and sets foot in the gathering, let the cupbearer bring the cup from the very start; (O cupbearer,) press on with the wine (fill the cup with wine).

5. O Sufi, the people of love call you at most a bit of straw; you must set foot on the face of the water by your miracle. (The couplet is obscure; the word "ḥas" is understood with the reading "ḫas", straw.)

6. O heart, put on your kingly speech, become Kay Khusraw; in glory set your foot on the head of Afrasiyab.

7. Set out for the flourishing gardens of the holy realm; O Fazlî, set the foot of resolve upon this utterly ruined (world).

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a ghazal (gazel) of seven couplets, written in the "mef‘ūlü fā‘ilātü mefā‘īlü fā‘ilün" pattern of the muzâri family of aruz (quantitative metre). The redif (refrain word) is the verb "baṣ" (set foot, press) and takes the form "-a baṣ" (set foot on) with the dative suffix; Özkat counts this ghazal among those whose redif is made up of a suffix and a Turkish word. The rhyme is formed by the sound "-āb" in the words "ḫarāb, ḳıbāb, āfitāb, ṣevāb, şarāb, āb, Efrāsiyāb"; the word "ḫarāb" (ruin) rhymes twice, in the opening couplet and in the last, so that the ghazal opens and closes with the same word. This is our own observation. The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet. The ghazal is the hundred and fourth in Özkat's edition and is found only in the Fazlî divan section (fol. 244a) of the miscellany in the Hazine collection of the Topkapı Palace Museum Library. It is not known to whom or when it was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal is a series of counsels given to the heart round the act of "setting foot" in the redif, and most of it has a mystical (Sufi) manner of expression: the heart should not attach itself to the world but turn to the heights. In the first couplet the world is likened to a ruin, and the heart that attaches itself to it to the owl, known to live in ruins; yet the heart is the falcon of the heights and should set its foot on the nine heavens of the old conception of the sky. In the second couplet there is an allusion to Jesus; in divan poetry Jesus is thought to have broken his bond with the world and risen to heaven, and to be in the fourth heaven, where the sun is. The heart too should be "mücerred" (solitary, unbound) like him, and set its foot on the head of the sun.

The fourth couplet is one Özkat cites among the examples of the idiom "ayak basmak" (to set foot). In the couplet there is a play of sound between the words "ayıḳ" (sober), "ayaḳ" (foot) and "ayaġı"; since in old Turkish the word "ayak" also meant "cup", the word "ayaġı" refers to the cup; this is our own observation. The Sufi who comes sober should be offered the cup from the start. The fifth couplet is obscure: we have read the word "ḥas" as "ḫas" (straw, chaff); with this reading the people of love count the Sufi as no more than a straw, and the Sufi's miracle of walking on water amounts to no more than a straw floating on the surface. This reading is our own inference. The sixth couplet is one Özkat cites among his examples of the pun (cinas): there is a relation of sound between "ḫüsrevī" (kingly) and "Key-ḫüsrev" (Kay Khusraw), and also between "gey" (put on) and "Key". In the Iranian epics Kay Khusraw is the king who defeats Afrasiyab, ruler of Turan; the heart too should set its foot on Afrasiyab's head. In the last couplet "ma‘mūre" (flourishing) and "ḫarāb" (ruined) form an antithesis.

This ghazal and ghazal a hundred and five, which follows it, are written in the same metre, with the same redif and the same rhyme; words such as "ḳıbāb" (domes), "şarāb" (wine) and "türāb" (earth) are rhymes in both, both open with the image of setting foot on the nine heavens, and both stand on the same leaf of the miscellany. This closeness 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. 345-346, ghazal no. 104 (Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Hazine, fol. 244a); also p. 45 (pun), p. 69 (redifs), p. 90 (idioms) and pp. 119-120 (description of the manuscripts), https://katalog.marmara.edu.tr/veriler/yordambt/cokluortam/5E/T0051713.pdf.

Online sources