Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mef‘ūlü Fā‘ilātü Mefā‘īlü Fā‘ilün

Oldum firāḳ-ı derd ile derdā ki ben gedā
‘Ālemde sevmesün şeh-i ālī olan gedā
Dirlük ḳomazsın ehl-i dile işigüñde hīç
Ölsün mi sen şehi iy efendi seven gedā
Ol yāre yār olam diyü fikr itme iy göñül
Şāh-ı cihāna hem-nefes olmaḳ ḳaçan gedā
Ümmīd-i vaṣl itme göñül ol nigārdan
Ol pādişāh-ı memleket-i ḥüsn ü ben gedā
Vaṣf-ı lebinde Fażlī bu şi‘ri ne ḫoş didüñ
Bu resme ola şi‘rde olınca reng ü edā

In English

1. Alas, through the pain of separation I have become a beggar; let no beggar in the world love one who is a lofty shah.

2. You leave no peace to the people of the heart at your threshold; my lord, should the beggar who loves you, the shah, die then?

3. O heart, do not think of becoming the companion of that beloved; when has a beggar ever been the intimate of the shah of the world?

4. Heart, do not hope for union with that painted beauty; that one is the padishah of the realm of beauty, and I am a beggar.

5. Fazlî, how finely you composed this poem in describing that lip; this is how it turns out when a poem has colour and grace.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a ghazal (gazel) of five couplets, written in the "mef‘ūlü fā‘ilātü mefā‘īlü fā‘ilün" pattern of the muzâri family of aruz (quantitative metre). The redif (refrain word) is "gedā" (beggar); Özkat counts this ghazal among those with a Persian single-word redif. The rhyme before the redif is formed by the sound "-n" in the words "ben, olan, seven, ḳaçan"; the rhyme "ben" of the opening couplet is repeated in the fourth couplet. In the form given in the edition the last line ends not with "gedā" but with "reng ü edā"; the word "edā" echoes the redif in sound, but the word itself has changed. The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet. The ghazal is the eighteenth in Özkat's edition and is found only in the Fazlî divan section (fol. 231a) of the miscellany in the Hazine collection of the Topkapı Palace Museum Library. It is not known to whom or when it was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The whole ghazal is built on the contrast between shah and beggar. The beloved is shah, padishah, ruler of the realm of beauty; the lover is a beggar waiting at the beloved's threshold. The words "şeh", "pādişāh", "memleket" (realm) and "işik" (threshold) form a congruence of images (tenasüp) that completes this picture of a court. Seeing the gulf between them, the lover counsels his own heart: the beggar should not love the shah, should not think of becoming his intimate, should not hope for union with him. In the first couplet a play of sound is made by placing side by side "derd" (pain) and "derdā" (alas), words from the same root.

Özkat cites the second couplet in three separate places in his study. In the first, the couplet illustrates how the beloved, aware of his own beauty and indifferent to the poet, wounds him deeply. In the second, it shows that Turkish and Turkicised words in Fazlî's poems far outnumber Arabic and Persian ones; indeed "dirlük ḳomazsın", "işigüñde", "ölsün mi" and "efendi" are expressions taken from everyday Turkish. In the third, it is given as an example of the poet asking the beloved questions and awaiting answers as if in a conversation, that is, of his sincere manner of speech close to the spoken language. The line "Ölsün mi sen şehi iy efendi seven gedā" turns the reproach into a question and throws the beloved's indifference back at him with light mockery. The word "dirlük" means both peace and livelihood; at the threshold the lover finds neither rest nor sustenance.

In the last couplet the poet praises his own poem. That a poem describing the beloved's lip should have colour and grace comes from the colour and beauty of the lip itself; thus the praise also touches the beloved who is the poem's subject.

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. 294, ghazal no. 18 (Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Hazine, fol. 231a); also p. 63 (subjects of the ghazals), p. 69 (redifs), p. 104 (Turkish vocabulary), p. 113 (manner of expression) and pp. 119-120 (description of the manuscripts), https://katalog.marmara.edu.tr/veriler/yordambt/cokluortam/5E/T0051713.pdf.

Online sources