Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fe‘ilātün Fe‘ilātün Fe‘ilātün Fe‘ilün

Ṭurduġınca çü yeter ‘āşıḳa cānāne belā
Ḫışm-ı çeşm ü ġam-ı zülfüñ daḫı cānā ne belâ
Eksik olmaz düşeli hicrüñe her cānibden
Dile ġam dīdeye nem cisme elem cāne belā
Ġam-ı zülfüñ daḫı bir baña ne baş aġrıdur
Ḳadd-i bālāñ olur iken dil-i sūzāne belā
Rūz u şeb nāle ider ‘ışḳ-ı belāsın dileyüp
Dilegüm bu ki vire Ḥaḳ dil-i nālāne belā
Tek hemān ġayr-ile yār olmaḳ ................
Ḫāşa-lillāh dimezem āteş-i hicrāne belā
Dil-i Ya‘ḳūb’ı gözet ḥüsnüñe maġrūr olma
Kendü ḥüsnidür olan Yūsuf-ı Ken‘ān’e belā
Çünki nesḫ oldı ḫaṭ-ı raġbet-i naẓm u eş‘ār
Fażliyā çekme hemān defter ü dīvāne belā

In English

1. As long as the beloved lives, he is calamity enough for the lover; O soul, and what a calamity besides are the wrath of your eye and the grief of your tresses.

2. Since I fell into separation from you, from every side grief to the heart, moisture (tears) to the eye, pain to the body and calamity to the soul never fail.

3. While your tall stature is a calamity for the burning heart, the grief of your tresses is yet another headache for me.

4. Day and night (the heart) laments, longing for the calamity of love; my wish is that God may grant calamity to this lamenting heart.

5. Only that (the beloved) should be the companion of another ... (the end of the line is missing in the manuscript); God forbid that I should call the fire of separation a calamity.

6. Mind the heart of Jacob, do not be proud of your beauty; what was a calamity to Joseph of Canaan was his own beauty.

7. Since the script of esteem for verse and poetry has been abrogated, O Fazlî, do not burden the notebook and the divan with calamity in vain.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a ghazal (gazel) of seven couplets, written in the "fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilün" pattern of the remel family of aruz (quantitative metre). The redif (refrain word) is "-e belā" (calamity to...); Özkat counts this ghazal among those with a compound redif made of a suffix with Turkish and Arabic elements. The rhyme is formed by the sound "-ān" in the words "cānān, cān, sūzān, nālān, hicrān, Ken‘ān, dīvān". The opening couplet begins with a paronomasia (cinas) between rhyme words: "cānāne belā" (calamity to the beloved) in the first line is read again in the second as "cānā ne belâ" (O soul, what a calamity). According to Özkat's footnote, the manuscript has "ṣafā" for "belā" in the second line of the first couplet. The first line of the fifth couplet is incomplete in the edition, its end left blank with dots; Özkat notes in a footnote that the line was left incomplete in the manuscript. The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet. The ghazal is the twenty-fifth in Özkat's edition and is found only in the Fazlî divan section (fol. 232b) 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

Each couplet of the ghazal turns the word "belā" (calamity) in the redif to a new face. In the first couplet the beloved himself is calamity enough for the lover; his angry glance and the grief of his tresses are added on top. In the second couplet what separation brings is counted in a four-part series: grief to the heart, moisture to the eye, pain to the body, calamity to the soul. The likeness in sound of "ġam", "nem" and "elem" forms a small internal rhyme within the line. In the third couplet the beloved's tall stature is a calamity and the tresses another "headache"; Özkat gives this couplet as an example of the idiom "baş ağrıtmak" (to give a headache). That the tresses belong to the head lends the idiom a concrete sense.

The fourth couplet voices the lover's paradox: the heart longs for the calamity of love, and the lover asks God to grant that heart calamity; to grant calamity here means to fulfil the heart's wish. The first line of the sixth couplet names the heart of Jacob and the second Joseph of Canaan; this is an allusion (telmih) to the story of Joseph. What befell Joseph was born of his own beauty; the beloved too is counselled not to be proud of his beauty. In the last couplet the poet complains of poetry itself. The word "nesḫ" means both the abrogation of a ruling and the naskh script; together with "ḫaṭ" (script), "defter" (notebook) and "dīvān" it forms a congruence of images (tenasüp). The line is the poet's reproach to himself, saying that no esteem for verse and poetry remains; in the phrase "dīvāne belā" the word "dīvān", joined with the redif, also recalls the word "dīvāne" (mad).

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, pp. 298-299, ghazal no. 25 (Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Hazine, fol. 232b); also p. 69 (redifs), p. 91 (idioms) and pp. 119-120 (description of the manuscripts), https://katalog.marmara.edu.tr/veriler/yordambt/cokluortam/5E/T0051713.pdf.

Online sources