Original Text (Mixed Languages)
Metre: Fe‘ilātün Mefā‘ilün Fe‘ilün
من زمى توبه كي كنم خاشا
من له العقل مايقول كذا
Ḫvāb her şeb baña ḫayāl oldı
في الهوي من ينام قد كذبا
هر چه تو دوست داريش همه اوست
كلما في الوجود ليس سوا
Yār birdür iki cihānda hemān
شهدالله انه ...... احدا
Gözüñ aç rūy-ı yāre baḳ ṣūfī
اشرقت شمس وجهه و بدا
وحدتش هست روشن از خورشيد
من اراد الدّليل قد خسرا
Sırr-ı vaḥdetden urma dem Fażlī
ليس افشا را سرها ادبا
Reading in Latin script: 1. Men ze-mey tevbe key konem ḥāşā / Men lehü’l-‘aḳlu mā yeḳūlu keẕā
2. Ḫvāb her şeb baña ḫayāl oldı / Fi’l-hevā men yenāmu ḳad keẕebā
3. Her çe tū dūst dārīyeş heme ūst / Küllü mā fi’l-vücūdi leyse sevā
4. Yār birdür iki cihānda hemān / Şehide’llāhu ennehū ...... eḥadā
5. Gözüñ aç rūy-ı yāre baḳ ṣūfī / Eşraḳat şemsü vechihī ve bedā
6. Vaḥdeteş hest rūşen ez ḫurşīd / Men erāde’d-delīle ḳad ḫasirā
7. Sırr-ı vaḥdetden urma dem Fażlī / Leyse ifşā’u sirrihā edebā
In English
1. God forbid, how could I repent of wine; no one who has reason says such a thing.
2. Every night sleep has become a mere fancy to me; in love, whoever says "I am sleeping" has lied.
3. Everything you love, all of it, is He; not everything in the realm of existence is equal. (The meaning of the second line is Özkat's. If the word at the end of the line is read "sivā", the meaning becomes "nothing in existence is other than Him"; this reading is ours.)
4. In the two worlds the beloved is but one; God has borne witness that He ... is one. (The middle of the second line is marked with dots in the edition; Özkat does not translate it because the line is incomplete. The rendering according to the legible words is ours.)
5. O Sufi, open your eyes and look upon the beloved's face; the sun of that face has risen and appeared.
6. His unity is brighter than the sun; whoever seeks proof has lost.
7. O Fazlî, do not speak of the secret of unity; to reveal the secret is not proper conduct.
Literary and Historical Commentary
Structure of the Poem
The poem is a ghazal (gazel) of seven couplets (beyit), written in the "fe‘ilātün mefā‘ilün fe‘ilün" pattern of the hafif metre of aruz (quantitative metre). Özkat presents this ghazal as one of Fazlî's two mülemma ghazals written in three languages, Turkish, Arabic and Persian. A mülemma is a poem in which lines composed in different languages are brought together. In this ghazal four lines are Turkish, three Persian and seven Arabic. The second line of every couplet is Arabic; the first lines move back and forth between Turkish and Persian. It has no redif (refrain word); the rhyme is built on the "-ā" sound at the end of the words "keẕā, keẕebā, sevā, eḥadā, bedā, ḫasirā, edebā", and Özkat counts the ghazal among those with full rhyme. The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet.
The ghazal is found in the Fazlî section of the miscellany in the Hazine collection of the Topkapı Palace Museum Library (fol. 217a). To whom and when it was written is not known. The edition gives the Arabic and Persian lines in Arabic script without showing their reading, and supplies their meanings in the footnotes. The Arabic-script lines in the original text are Özkat's text. The reading in Latin script is ours; for these lines the English rendering is based on the meanings in Özkat's footnotes. A few spellings require comment. The word at the end of the first line is printed in the edition as "خاشا"; the sense calls for the reading "حاشا" (ḥāşā). In the last line we have read the edition's spelling "افشا را سرها" as "ifşā’u sirrihā" according to metre and sense. In the Arabic line of the fourth couplet the edition leaves a gap; we have left this illegible portion in place as dots.
Meaning and Figures of Speech
The ghazal opens in the voice of a rind (a free-spirited drinker): the poet finds it contrary to reason to repent of wine. In the following couplets it gradually becomes clear who this wine and this beloved are. In the third couplet it is said that "everything you love is He", in the fourth that there is a single beloved in the two worlds, and in the sixth the word "vaḥdet" (unity) appears openly. The ghazal thus uses the language of love poetry to express the Sufi idea of unity. The Turkish lines usually set up a statement or an address, while the Arabic lines complete that statement like an aphorism.
In the second couplet sleeplessness is the lover's familiar state: for the lover thinking of the beloved, sleep is only a fancy. The Arabic line turns this into a rule: whoever says he sleeps in love is lying. The Arabic line of the fourth couplet begins with the words "şehide’llāhu ennehū"; that these words are identical with the opening of verse 18 of the sura Âl-i İmrân in the Qur'an, which states that God bears witness that there is no god but He, is our observation. The missing middle of the line very probably also described this unity; but since the text is not before us we cannot say so with certainty.
In the fifth and sixth couplets the image of the sun comes to the fore. The Sufi is told to open his eyes and look at the beloved's face, for the sun of this face has risen. It is then said that unity is plainer than the sun, and that therefore whoever looks for proof has lost. The idea that no other light is needed to see the sun binds these two couplets together. Özkat illustrates the idiom "gözünü açmak" (to open one's eyes) among Fazlî's idioms with this couplet.
The last couplet ends with a familiar counsel of Sufi poetry: the secret of unity is not revealed to everyone, and to divulge the secret is contrary to proper conduct. The poet directs this counsel at himself through his pen name. Özkat also illustrates the idiom "dem urmak" (to speak of) with this couplet. That the ghazal in this way both tells the secret and counsels against telling it is an attitude often seen in Sufi poetry.
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. 284-285, ghazal no. 3 (Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Hazine, fol. 217a; meanings of the Arabic and Persian lines in the footnotes); also p. 62 (mülemma ghazals), p. 69 (rhyme), pp. 91-92 (idioms) and pp. 108-109 (Arabic and Persian elements), https://katalog.marmara.edu.tr/veriler/yordambt/cokluortam/5E/T0051713.pdf.
- Rıza Kurtuluş, İskender Pala, "Mülemma‘", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, 2020. https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/mulemma
Online sources
