Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fā‘ilātün Fā‘ilātün Fā‘ilātün Fā‘ilün

Ṭutuşup ‘ışk ile oldum eşk-i bī-pāyāna ġarḳ
Kim görüpdür baḥr-ı bī-pāyān içinde yana ġarḳ
Fülk-i ten girdāba düşdi Nūḥ-ı rūḥ olmaz ḫalāṣ
Oldı seyl-āb-ı sirişkümden cihān ṭūfāna ġarḳ
‘Işḳa düşdi dil ‘aceb mi göz yaşından el yusa
Neylesün dürr-i muṣaffāyı olan ‘ummāna ġarḳ
Var iken dendān u lā‘lüñ aña itmez ārzū
İtse dil ġavvāsını deryā dür ü mercāna ġarḳ
Murtażā ḥaḳḳı ‘Alī olmasun adum Fażliyā
Eylemezsem Düldül-i cismüm ser-ā-ser ḳana ġarḳ

In English

1. Set aflame by love I have drowned in endless tears; who has ever seen one drowning while burning in a boundless sea?

2. The ship of the body has fallen into the whirlpool, the Noah of the soul cannot escape; through the flood of my tears the world is drowned in a deluge.

3. The heart has fallen into love; is it a wonder if it washes its hands of (gives up) its tears? What should one drowned in the ocean do with a pure pearl?

4. While your teeth and your lip exist, the heart does not long for them, even if the sea should drown the diver of the heart in pearls and coral.

5. O Fazlî, by the right of Murtazâ (the Caliph Ali), let my name not be Ali if I do not drown my body, like Düldül, in blood from head to foot.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a ghazal (gazel) of five couplets, written in the "fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün" pattern of the remel family of aruz (quantitative metre). The redif (refrain word) is the phrase "-a ġarḳ" (drowned in); Özkat counts it among redifs made up of a suffix, a Turkish element and an Arabic word. The rhyme is formed by the sound "-ān" in the words "bī-pāyān, ṭūfān, ‘ummān, mercān, ḳan"; the word "yana" (while burning) in the second line of the opening couplet also leans on this sound. The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet in the form "Fażliyā". The ghazal is the hundred and twelfth in Özkat's edition and is found only in the Fazlî divan section (fol. 245b) 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

All the images of the ghazal gather round water and drowning. The opening couplet begins with an antithesis: the lover is set aflame by the fire of love, yet he has drowned in a boundless sea of tears; he says that no one has ever seen a man drown while burning. In the second couplet the body is a ship and the soul the Noah aboard it; the flood of tears drowns the world in a deluge, but this time the master of the ark cannot be saved. The words Noah, ship, whirlpool and deluge form a congruence of images (tenasüp). In the third couplet the idiom "göz yaşından el yumak" is used in both its senses: to wash one's hands and to give something up. Özkat lists this couplet among the places where the idiom "el çekmek, el yıkamak, el yumak" occurs. For one fallen into the ocean a single pearl has no value; the heart fallen into the sea of love likewise pays no heed to the drops of its tears.

In the fourth couplet the beloved's teeth are pearls and his lip is coral; in divan poetry the comparison of teeth to pearls and of the lip to coral and the tulip is common. Even if the sea should drown the diver of the heart in real pearls and coral, the heart does not want them, because something more precious lies in the beloved's mouth. The last couplet is the most striking place in the ghazal: the poet swears by Murtazâ, the epithet of the Caliph Ali, and wishes that his name may not be Ali if he does not dye his body in blood from head to foot like Düldül, the mount of Ali. In the couplet the words Ali, Murtazâ and Düldül form a chain of allusions (telmih).

Historical Context

This couplet is used as evidence in the question of the poet's name. According to Özkat, most of the biographical anthologies of poets (tezkire) give the poet's name as Mehmed, and in some copies the name Mahmud also occurs; the poet, however, states plainly in this couplet that his name is Ali. Özkat regards this statement as a record documenting that the poet's real name was Ali and thinks his name may have been "Mehmed Ali". Özkat notes that this is the only one of Fazlî's ghazals in which he mentions his real name on some occasion, and says that the poet, who felt a deep reverence for the four caliphs, used their names mostly as terms of comparison.

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. 350-351, ghazal no. 112 (Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Hazine, fol. 245b); also pp. 9, 14 and 62 (the poet's name), p. 69 (redifs), p. 75 (the four caliphs) and p. 92 (idioms), https://katalog.marmara.edu.tr/veriler/yordambt/cokluortam/5E/T0051713.pdf.

Online sources