Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Dāne-i gendüm gibi derd-ile zerd oldı beñiz
Mürġ-i dil ṣayd itmede dām-ı cihānda bu beñiz
Tīre-dil Ḳaradeñiz’dür gözlerümdür Aḳdeñiz
Ḫūn-ı dil çeşmümden aḳarsa revādur aḳ deñiz
Olalı sen āşinādan dūr şāhā bendeñiz
Dürr-i dendānuñ ġamından yaşum itdüm ben deñiz
Kimsenüñ iy tīr-i dilber ḳatline göz dikmeñiz
Sīneye dik tīrüñi olsun cihānda dikmeñiz

In English

1. Our complexion (beñiz) has turned yellow with pain like a grain of wheat; in hunting the bird of the heart in the snare of the world, it is this complexion (that serves as bait). (The second line is obscure; this reading is a conjecture.)

2. The darkened heart is the Black Sea (Karadeniz), my eyes are the White Sea (Akdeniz, the Mediterranean); if the blood of the heart flows from my eye, it is fitting: flow, O sea. ("Aḳ deñiz" carries both the name "Akdeniz" and the call "ak, deniz", "flow, O sea".)

3. O king, since you have drawn far from your acquaintance (āşinā), your servant (bendeñiz) has made his tears a sea (ben deñiz) in grief for the pearls of your teeth. ("Bendeñiz" and "ben deñiz" form two different phrases from the same sounds.)

4. O arrow of the beloved (O glance), do not set your eyes on killing anyone; plant your arrow in my breast, and let that be your planted mark in the world. ("Dikmeñiz" means in one place "do not fix" and in the other "the thing you have planted".)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The text before us is a fragment of four couplets written in the "fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün" pattern of the remel family of aruz (quantitative metre). Özkat gathers Fazlî's couplets found in the biographical anthologies of poets (tezkire) at the end of the ghazal section, under the heading "Couplets Appearing Independently in the Tezkires"; according to Özkat the fourteen fragments under this heading amount to twenty couplets. This fragment is numbered as ghazal a hundred and forty-two in that section and is taken from Âşık Çelebi's tezkire (fol. 198a). In the edition the fragment is headed "Mücennes ġazel-i muṣarra‘": a punning ghazal in which both lines of every couplet rhyme. Indeed all eight lines of the four couplets end in the sound "-eñiz". Since there is no pen name (mahlas), it is not known whether the fragment is a complete ghazal. It is not known to whom or when it was written.

By Özkat's count, only one of Fazlî's thirty-six rhymed ghazals without a redif has punning rhyme, and that is this ghazal. Özkat quotes the whole fragment in two separate places: when showing that punning (mücennes) poems, though rare, are found among Fazlî's ghazals, and when noting that the poet valued expression as much as meaning and wrote punning ghazals with words drawn from local geography.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

In every couplet the rhyme words repeat the same sequence of sounds with different meanings. In the opening couplet "beñiz" first means complexion: the face turned yellow with pain is likened to a grain of wheat. There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) between the words grain (dāne), snare (dām) and bird (mürġ); in divan poetry the mole on the beloved's face is also likened to the grain of bait in a snare. That the word "beñiz" in the second line plays on this image of the mole is a conjecture. In the second couplet the rhyme lies between "Aḳdeñiz" (the Mediterranean) and "aḳ deñiz" (flow, O sea); the same line also names "Ḳaradeñiz" (the Black Sea): the darkened heart is likened to the Black Sea, and the eyes shedding bloody tears to the Mediterranean. Özkat says that, through his use of local place names as terms of comparison and the liveliness that comes from the plainness of his language, Fazlî has an air that almost heralds Nedim, and he cites this couplet as an example.

In the third couplet there is a pun (cinas) between "bendeñiz" (your servant) and "ben deñiz" (I ... a sea). There is also a congruence of images between the pearl-like teeth (dürr-i dendān) and the sea, since pearls come from the sea. That the word "āşinā", besides meaning an acquaintance, also carries in Persian the sense of a swimmer connects it with the image of the sea in the couplet; this is our own observation. In the last couplet "dikmeñiz" is used once in the sense "do not fix (your eyes)" and once in the sense "your planted thing, your planted mark": the lover wishes the beloved's arrow to pierce his own breast instead of killing others, so that his breast may be the beloved's mark in the world. Özkat also mentions the first couplet as an example of Fazlî's predominant use of Turkish and naturalized words and his sparing use of long compounds.

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. 369, ghazal no. 142 (Âşık Çelebi's tezkire, fol. 198a); also p. 62 (the couplets in the tezkires), p. 69 (rhyme), p. 72 (punning ghazals), pp. 104-105 and 107 (language and style) and p. 114 (conclusion), https://katalog.marmara.edu.tr/veriler/yordambt/cokluortam/5E/T0051713.pdf.
  • Âşık Çelebi, Meşâ'irü'ş-Şu'arâ or Tezkere of 'Âşık Çelebi, ed. G. M. Meredith-Owens, London 1971, fol. 198a (as cited by Özkat).

Online sources