Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

‘Āşıḳa cānānenüñ gerçi cefāsı yoḳ degül
Ol cefādan ‘āşıḳuñ ammā ṣafāsı yoḳ degül
‘Īd-i vaṣl itdüm temennā el uzatdı ḳatlüme
Bendesine şükr o şāhuñ merḥabāsı yoḳ degül
Āb-ı Kevs̱er’den yur el ‘āşıḳ yumaz yüz ṭā‘ata
Neylesün anı şarāb-ı dil-güşāsı yoḳ degül
Cān baġışlar leblerüñ ammā ki çeşmüñ ḳan döker
Gerçi ‘ışḳuñ balı var līkin belāsı yoḳ degül
Tekyelenme cennete zāhid ki bunda ‘ārifüñ
Gūşe-i mey-ḫāne gibi bir serāsı yoḳ degül
Cevr idüp bī-çārenüñ ḳaddin kemān itme ṣaḳın
Pādişāhum ‘āşıḳuñ tīr-i du‘āsı yoḳ degül
Ter düşüp bir ḳaṭrece ‘aynına almaz Fażliyā
Çeşmümüñ deryā ile bir mācerāsı yoḳ degül

In English

1. Though the beloved is not without cruelty to the lover, the lover is not without delight in that cruelty.

2. I longed for the festival of union, and he stretched out his hand to kill me; thank God, that king is not without a "welcome" for his servant.

3. The lover washes his hands of the water of Kevser (gives it up) and does not wash his face for worship; what is he to do, he is not without the wine that gladdens the heart.

4. Your lips grant life but your eye sheds blood; though your love has its honey, it is not without its affliction.

5. O ascetic, do not lean your trust on paradise; for here the gnostic is not without a palace like the corner of the tavern.

6. Beware of bending the helpless one's stature like a bow with your cruelty; my king, the lover is not without the arrow of prayer.

7. O Fazlî, if a dewdrop falls, (my eye) does not take a single drop into account; my eye is not without its affair with the sea.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a ghazal (gazel) of seven 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 "-sı yoḳ degül" (is not without); Özkat counts this ghazal among those whose redif is made up of a suffix and Turkish words. The rhyme is formed by the sound "-ā" in the words "cefā, ṣafā, merḥabā, dil-güşā, belā, serā, du‘ā, mācerā". The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet in the form "Fażliyā". The ghazal is the hundred and twenty-first in Özkat's edition and is found only in the Fazlî divan section (fol. 246a) of the miscellany in the Hazine collection of the Topkapı Palace Museum Library. It is not known to whom or when it was written.

Özkat uses several couplets of this ghazal as examples in different chapters. He cites the fourth couplet to show that Fazlî used Arabic and Persian words in easily understood, naturalised forms, and gives the same couplet as an example of antithesis (tezat). He lists the second couplet among the places where the idiom "el uzatmak" (to stretch out the hand) occurs, the third among those with "el yumak" (to wash one's hands of), and the last among those with "göze almak" (to take into account); he notes that in the last couplet the idiom "göze almak" is given in the form "‘aynına almak", that is, with the Arabic word "‘ayn" (eye).

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The phrase "yoḳ degül" (not without) in the redif states the existence of something through the negation of a negative, that is, indirectly and with restraint; all the couplets of the ghazal are built on this cautious way of speaking. In the opening couplet cruelty and delight are set against each other: the beloved is cruel, but the lover takes pleasure in that cruelty. The second couplet uses the image of the festival. While the lover longs for the festival of union, the beloved stretches out his hand to kill him; stretching out the hand at a festival also recalls the custom of exchanging festival greetings. That the phrase "el uzatmak" carries both these senses together is our own observation. The lover gives thanks all the same, for the beloved has said a "welcome" to his servant.

In the third couplet the idioms "el yumak" and "yüz yumak" are used side by side: the lover washes his hands of the water of Kevser, that is, he gives up the blessing of paradise; he does not wash his face for worship, that is, he does not perform his ablutions and turns his face away from worship. The use of these two idioms in both their literal and figurative senses together is our own observation. In the fourth couplet the lip that grants life and the eye that sheds blood, the honey of love and its affliction, are set against each other; the closeness of sound between "bal" (honey) and "belā" (affliction) is also our own observation. In the fifth couplet the relation of sound between the verb "tekyelenmek" (to lean, to rely) and the word "tekye" (dervish lodge) brings forward the gnostic's corner of the tavern against the ascetic's reliance on paradise.

In the sixth couplet cruelty bends the lover's stature like a bow; in the lover's hand, however, there is an arrow of prayer. The words bow and arrow form a congruence of images (tenasüp), and the couplet gives the king a reproachful warning through the arrow of the wronged man's prayer. In the last couplet the lover's eye has wept as much as if it had had an affair with the sea; therefore it does not take a single drop of dew or sweat into account, that is, it pays no heed to it.

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. 356, ghazal no. 121 (Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Hazine, fol. 246a); also p. 42 (language and style), p. 69 (redifs), p. 85 (figures of speech), pp. 87 and 92 (idioms) and p. 105 (plain Turkish), https://katalog.marmara.edu.tr/veriler/yordambt/cokluortam/5E/T0051713.pdf.

Online sources