Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

‘Āşıḳ-ı bī-renge hem-reng olımaz ol sāde dil
K’olmaya ḳayd-ı nuḳūş-ı dünyeden āzāde dil
Gāh derd ü gāh miḥnet geh belā geh ġam çeker
Ḫaste dil bī-çāre dil āvāre dil üftāde dil
Her-dem a‘dā vü eḥibbādan çeker biñ dürlü derd
Derd içün ḫalḳ oldı beñzer dōstlar dünyāda dil
Gāh bend-i hicr düşdi gāh zindān ġama
Żāyi‘ oldı ḥasretā bu derdle arada dil
Fażliyā ol ḫüsrev-i ḥüsne hevā-dār olmayup
Bir zene dil virdügi-y-çün er dimez Ferhād’a dil

In English

1. The heart that is not free from the bonds of the world's adornments cannot be of one colour (in harmony) with the colourless lover (purified of every colour), that simple heart.

2. Now it suffers pain, now trouble, now affliction, now grief; the sick heart, the helpless heart, the wandering heart, the fallen heart.

3. At every moment the heart suffers a thousand kinds of pain from enemies and friends; friends, in this world the heart seems to have been created for pain.

4. Now the heart fell into the bonds of separation, now into the dungeon of grief; alas, with this pain it was lost in between.

5. O Fazlî, the heart does not call Ferhad a "man", because he gave his heart to a woman and did not long for that sovereign of beauty (Hüsrev).

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 word "dil"; Özkat counts this ghazal among those with a Persian word as redif, since in Persian "dil" means heart. The rhyme is formed by the sounds "-āde / -āda" in the words "sāde, āzāde, üftāde, dünyāda, arada, Ferhād'a". The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet in the form "Fażliyā". The ghazal is the hundred and twenty-third in Özkat's edition and is found only in the Fazlî divan section (fol. 246b) of the miscellany in the Hazine collection of the Topkapı Palace Museum Library. The word "çeker" in the first line of the second couplet is "ciger" in the manuscript. It is not known to whom or when it was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet is built on colour. The true lover is "bī-reng", colourless, that is, purified of the colours and adornments of the world; a heart that remains bound to the world cannot be "hem-reng", of one colour with him. The phrase "sāde-dil" means both pure-hearted and easily deceived; it is not clear which of these two senses is meant in the line. The second couplet is the one Özkat cites as an example of repetition (tekrir) and of creating harmony through the repetition of words. In the first line "gāh" (now, at times) is repeated four times to list pain, trouble, affliction and grief; in the second line the redif word "dil" is repeated four times to count up the states of the heart. Özkat also lists the same couplet among the places where the idiom "gam çekmek" (to suffer grief) occurs.

In the third couplet the heart suffers pain from both enemy and friend, and the poet, calling out to his readers as "dōstlar" (friends), says that the heart was created for pain. In the fourth couplet separation is likened to a bond and grief to a dungeon; the heart has been lost between the two. The last couplet rests on the story of Hüsrev and Şîrîn. In the story Ferhad falls in love with Şîrîn and cuts through a mountain for her, while Şîrîn is the beloved of King Hüsrev. The poet says that the heart does not count as a "man" Ferhad, who gave his heart to a woman instead of attaching himself to a sovereign of beauty. That the phrase "ḫüsrev-i ḥüsn" (sovereign of beauty) contains the name of Hüsrev, the other hero of the story, creates a double entendre (tevriye); this is our own observation. Özkat quotes this couplet in two separate places as an example of Fazlî's skilful use of plain Turkish and of his wordplay with idioms. That the redif word "dil" in this couplet also evokes the Turkish sense of "dil" (tongue), allowing the reading "the tongue does not call Ferhad a man", 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, p. 357, ghazal no. 123 (Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Hazine, fol. 246b); also pp. 42 and 103 (language and style), p. 69 (redifs), p. 85 (figures of speech), p. 92 (idioms) and p. 113 (manner of expression), https://katalog.marmara.edu.tr/veriler/yordambt/cokluortam/5E/T0051713.pdf.

Online sources