Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Ḳanlar dökilür ḫançer-i bürrānuñ ucundan
Başlar kesilür zülf-i perīşānuñ ucundan
Ḳıl merhem-i vaṣluñla meded çāre ṭabībüm
Çāk oldı yürek nāvek-i hicrānuñ ucundan

In English

1. Blood is shed from the point of your keen dagger; heads are cut off at the tips (on account) of your dishevelled tresses.

2. O my physician, come to my aid and find a remedy with the salve of union; my heart has been torn open by the point of the arrow of separation.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The text before us is a fragment of two couplets written in the "mef‘ūlü mefā‘īlü mefā‘īlü fe‘ūlün" pattern of the hezec 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-six in that section and is taken from Riyâzî's tezkire. The redif (refrain word) is "-uñ ucundan" (from the point of your ...) and the rhyme words are "bürrān / perīşān / hicrān"; Özkat counts the fragment among the ghazals with a redif made of a suffix and a Turkish word. Since both lines of the first couplet rhyme, the fragment consists of the opening couplet (matla) of a ghazal and one couplet following it; there is no pen-name couplet. This is our own inference. The rest of the ghazal, and to whom and when it was written, are not known.

As Özkat reports, the entry on Fazlî in Riyâzî's tezkire gives the poet's name as Muhammed, counts him a native of Istanbul and says that he was known by the title "Kara Fazlî"; the same entry also records that Fazlî died in 971 and that Gelibolulu Âlî composed a chronogram on his death with the words "Fażlī öldi" (Fazlî has died).

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The whole expression of the fragment rests on the word "ucundan" in the redif. This word carries both the sense "from the point of" something and the sense "on account of, because of". The blood shed from the point of the dagger and of the arrow of separation is close to the literal sense; the cutting off of heads at the tips of the tresses means "because of the tresses" and also recalls the very tips of the tresses. This is our own observation. In the opening couplet the beloved's weapons are listed: the keen (bürrān) dagger sheds blood, the dishevelled (perīşān) tresses cut off heads. In divan poetry the tresses are a snare or chain that binds the hearts of lovers; their cutting off heads here like an executioner is the harshest form of this motif. The words "blood" and "head" and the verbs "shed" and "cut" bind the two lines together.

In the second couplet the scene turns to a physician's room. The beloved is the physician (ṭabīb), union the salve, separation an arrow (nāvek), and the lover's heart a wound torn open (çāk) by this arrow. There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) between the words "ṭabīb" (physician), "merhem" (salve), "çāre" (remedy) and "çāk" (tear). The beloved who wounds in the opening couplet becomes here the one expected to heal; this is the familiar attitude of the lover in divan poetry, who expects both the pain and the cure from the beloved. The cry "meded" (help) gives the couplet the air of a call for rescue.

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. 370, ghazal no. 146 (Riyâzî's tezkire); also pp. 13 and 21 (Riyâzî's entry on Fazlî), p. 62 (the couplets in the tezkires and the complete ghazals) and p. 69 (redifs), https://katalog.marmara.edu.tr/veriler/yordambt/cokluortam/5E/T0051713.pdf.
  • Riyâzî Mehmed, Riyâzü'ş-Şu'arâ, manuscript, Millet Library, Ali Emîrî Collection no. 765 (as cited by Özkat).

Online sources