Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Ṭaġa düşsem yād-ı ruḫsāruñla eşkümden benüm
Ṭaġ rāġ u rāġ bāġ u bāġ pür ezhār olur

In English

1. Were I to wander into the mountains with the memory of your cheek, from my tears the mountain would become a meadow, the meadow a garden, and the garden full of flowers.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The text before us is a single couplet 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 couplet is numbered as ghazal a hundred and forty-seven in that section and is taken from Riyâzî's tezkire. There is no rhyme between the lines ("benüm / olur"); Özkat counts this couplet among the eight fragments whose beginning and end could not be established and which survive as single couplets. From which part of the ghazal the couplet was taken, 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). Most of Fazlî's ghazals that have come down complete are of five couplets; according to Özkat, eighty-three of the hundred and twenty-four complete ghazals are of this length. The length of the ghazal to which this lone couplet belonged, however, is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The couplet is a hyperbole describing the abundance of the lover's tears. Were the lover to wander into the mountains remembering the beloved's cheek, the tears he sheds would water the barren mountain; the mountain would turn into a meadow (rāġ), the meadow into a garden and the garden into one full of flowers. The second line sets out this change step by step, advancing at each step by repeating the preceding word: "ṭaġ rāġ u rāġ bāġ u bāġ pür ezhār". The similarity in sound of the words "ṭaġ" (mountain), "rāġ" (meadow) and "bāġ" (garden) gives the line a harmony of internal rhyme. These observations are our own. Wandering into the mountains recalls the lover who, parted from the beloved, withdraws like Majnun to desolate places; this connection is our interpretation. Since in divan poetry the cheek (ruḫsār) is likened to the rose, the tears shed in its memory flooding everything with flowers also carry their own justification within the couplet: eyes that remember the rose-like cheek turn the earth into a rose garden. This last interpretation is also our own. The verb "düşmek" (to fall) is also telling: the lover does not go to the mountains of his own will but falls into them; the expression hints at his helplessness. This interpretation too is our own.

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. 371, ghazal no. 147 (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 (single-couplet fragments), 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