Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mef‘ūlü Mefā‘īlü Mefā‘īlü Fe‘ūlün

Gel ‘ıyş idelüm gül gibi tenhāca yigitcik
Zībāca vü ra‘nāca vü a‘lāca yigitcik

In English

1. Come, my young lad, let us make merry alone together like the rose; (you are) a lad so fair, so graceful and so noble.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The text before us is only the opening couplet of a ghazal (gazel) written in the "mef‘ūlü mefā‘īlü mefā‘īlü fe‘ūlün" pattern of the hezec family of aruz (quantitative metre). Özkat gives this fragment under the heading "incomplete ghazals rhyming in the letter kâf", among those whose last couplets are missing; in a footnote to the heading he explains that these ghazals were not left unfinished by the poet, but that because of missing pages in the miscellanies the first couplets of some and the last couplets of others have been lost. The couplet is found in the Fazlî divan section (fol. 241a) of the miscellany in the Hazine collection of the Topkapı Palace Museum Library and is numbered as ghazal a hundred and nineteen in Özkat's edition.

The redif (refrain word) is the phrase "-ca yigitcik"; 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 "-ā" in the words "tenhā, zībā, ra‘nā, a‘lā"; in the second line three rhyme words come one after another. Since the pen-name couplet has been lost, it is not known to whom or when the ghazal was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The couplet is built in a plain Turkish close to the spoken language. The word "yigitcik" in the redif is made by adding to "yiğit" (young man, brave lad) the suffix "-cik", which expresses affection and smallness, and gives the address to the beloved a tender, playful air. The suffix "-ca" added to the rhyme words also binds Persian and Arabic words to a Turkish idiom in "tenhāca" (alone together), "zībāca" (fairly), "ra‘nāca" (gracefully) and "a‘lāca" (nobly). The rose is in divan poetry the symbol of the beloved and of the gathering; to make merry "like the rose" evokes the cheerful drinking parties held in the season when the rose blooms. This evocation is our own interpretation.

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, p. 355, ghazal no. 119 (Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Hazine, fol. 241a); also p. 62 (incomplete ghazals) and p. 69 (redifs), https://katalog.marmara.edu.tr/veriler/yordambt/cokluortam/5E/T0051713.pdf.

Online sources