Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Ġunç ider gül bize ol ġonce-dehendür gūyiyā
Ṣalınur nāz ile serv ol nārvendür gūyiyā
Baña sensüz ḫil‘at-ı şāhī libās-ı ḫüsrevī
Taḫte-i tābūt ile şāhum kefendür gūyiyā
Ṭūṭi lā‘lüñ şekkerin ögmek dilermiş söylenür
Ḥaddini bilmez ḳuşuñ şīrīn-süḫandur gūyiyā
Ḳāmet-i bālāsı üzre ‘ārıż-ı sīmīn yār
Serv üzre yāsemendür yā semender gūyiyā
Sīne-i sīmīni üzre Fażliyā ḫāl-i siyāh
Penbe içre dāne-i müşg-i Ḫotan’dur gūyiyā

In English

1. The rose plays coy with us; it is as if it were that rosebud-mouthed beloved. The cypress sways with coquetry; it is as if it were that beloved tall as the nārven tree.

2. My shah, without you the royal robe and the garment of kings are to me as if they were the board of a coffin and a shroud.

3. The parrot, it is said, wishes to praise the sugar of your ruby lip; the bird that does not know its place fancies itself sweet of speech.

4. The silver cheek of the beloved upon that lofty stature is as if it were a jasmine upon a cypress, or else a salamander.

5. O Fazlî, the black mole upon his silver breast is as if it were a grain of the musk of Khotan within cotton.

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 "-dür/-dur gūyiyā" (is, as it were); Özkat counts this ghazal among those with a compound redif made of a suffix with Turkish and Persian elements. The rhyme is formed by the sound "-en/-an" in the words "dehen, nārven, kefen, süḫan, Ḫotan"; in the fourth couplet, however, the rhyme and redif turn into a play on words between "yāsemendür" (is a jasmine) and "yā semender" (or a salamander). The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet. The ghazal is the twenty-fourth in Özkat's edition and is found only in the Fazlî divan section (fol. 232a) 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 word "gūyiyā" (as it were) in the redif turns the ghazal into a chain of comparisons: in every couplet one thing is likened to another. In the first couplet the comparison works in reverse; the rose and the cypress resemble the beloved, but the poet ascribes their coyness and swaying to their taking themselves for the beloved. In the second couplet the beloved's absence overturns every value: the royal robe becomes the board of a coffin, the garment of kings a shroud. Özkat gives this couplet as an example of the figure leff ü neşr (enumeration and corresponding enumeration); the two garments named in the first line are answered in order by two objects of death in the second. The third couplet uses the familiar link between the parrot and sugar; the parrot sets out to praise the sugar of the beloved's lip, but it is a bird that does not know its place. Özkat takes the idiom "haddini bilmek" (to know one's place) from this couplet.

The fourth couplet is among Özkat's examples of paronomasia (cinas). The beloved's stature is a cypress, his cheek a white jasmine blooming on that cypress; at the end of the line the same sounds are read again as "yā semender" (or a salamander). The salamander is, in divan poetry, the creature thought to live in fire; the whiteness of the cheek is linked to the jasmine and its fiery glow to the salamander, so that a single sequence of sounds carries two separate comparisons. The last couplet rests on the contrast between white and black: the black mole on the beloved's silver breast is a grain of the musk of Khotan resting in white cotton. Khotan is a place named in divan poetry for its musk; the mole is likened to this musk both in its colour and in its scent.

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. 298, ghazal no. 24 (Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Hazine, fol. 232a); also p. 45 (paronomasia), p. 69 (redifs), p. 84 (leff ü neşr), p. 92 (idioms) and pp. 119-120 (description of the manuscripts), https://katalog.marmara.edu.tr/veriler/yordambt/cokluortam/5E/T0051713.pdf.

Online sources