Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Metre: Fe‘ilātün Mefā‘ilün Fe‘ilün
Oldı rif‘atde sidreden a‘lā
Ḳāmetüñ servi ḳām-ı rif‘athā
Ḥüsnüñüñ kim bahāsı cümle cihān
Bārek-Allah zihī kemāl-i bahā
Baña her tīr ki atduñ oldı ‘ıyān
Ḥikmeten “ما رميت” (vü) sırr-ı “رمي”
Reading: Ḥikmeten "mā rameyte" (vü) sırr-ı "remā". The reading and meaning are from Özkat's footnote (p. 302).
Dehenidür o ḥoḳḳa-i yāḳūt
ليس الاّ شفاءنا فيها
Reading: Leyse illā şifā'enā fīhā. The reading and meaning are from Özkat's footnote (p. 303).
Nisbet itmek ḳadüñe nār u ney
Serv-i men nā-revā durur ne revā
Şöyle oldı yüzümde eşküm cem‘
Baḥre yoḳ nisbeti bivechin mā
Didi Fażlī ṣaçuña ‘ömr-i dırāz
طوّل الله عمره ابدا
Reading: Ṭavvelallāhu ‘ömrehu ebedā. The reading and meaning are from Özkat's footnote (p. 303; also p. 107).
In English
1. The cypress of your stature has become higher in loftiness than the Sidra tree; it is the desire of all heights. (The phrase "ḳām-ı rif‘athā" in the second line is obscure; it can be understood as "the wish of the heights".)
2. The price of your beauty is the whole world; God bless it, what a perfect price.
3. In every arrow you shot at me, the wisdom of the words "You did not throw" and the secret of "(God) threw" became manifest. (An allusion to verse 17 of the sura al-Anfâl: "When you threw, it was not you who threw, but God threw.")
4. That ruby casket is the beloved's mouth; "there is nothing in it for us but healing."
5. O my cypress, it is unseemly to compare your stature to the pomegranate tree and the reed; how can that be thought fitting?
6. My tears gathered so on my face that the sea bears no comparison in any way with this water.
7. Fazlî wished your hair "long life": "May God lengthen his life for ever."
Literary and Historical Commentary
Structure of the Poem
The poem is a ghazal (gazel) of seven couplets, written in the "fe‘ilātün mefā‘ilün fe‘ilün" pattern of the hafif family of aruz (quantitative metre). It has no redif (refrain word); the rhyme in every couplet is the sound "-ā": a‘lā, rif‘athā, bahā, remā, fīhā, revā, mā, ebedā. Mustafa Özkat counts this ghazal among those with full rhyme. The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet. The ghazal is the thirty-first in Özkat's edition and is found in the Fazlî divan section (fol. 247a) of the miscellany in the Hazine collection of the Topkapı Palace Museum Library. It is not known to whom or when it was written.
Three lines of the ghazal contain Arabic expressions, and the edition prints them in Arabic script: the two short Qur'anic phrases in the second line of the third couplet, and the second lines of the fourth and seventh couplets. The Arabic-script parts of the original text have been copied letter by letter from the printed page of the edition. The readings and meanings are taken from Özkat's footnotes; Özkat also cites the seventh couplet as an example among the Arabic and Persian elements in Fazlî's poems. In the second line of the second couplet the manuscript has "kemāl-i bahār"; Özkat prefers the reading "kemāl-i bahā" on grounds of rhyme and sense.
Meaning and Figures of Speech
The ghazal is a praise of beauty built on the beloved's stature, mouth and hair, and it adorns this praise with religious expressions. In the opening couplet the beloved's stature is described with the familiar cypress comparison of divan poetry; but this time the cypress is taller than the Sidra tree of paradise. An exaggeration is thus built between stature and loftiness. The word "bahā" (price) in the second couplet is repeated in both lines; the price of the beloved's beauty is the whole world.
The third couplet is the most striking place in the ghazal. The beloved's glances, as often in divan poetry, are arrows shot at the lover. The poet ties these arrows to the Qur'anic verse "When you threw, it was not you who threw, but God threw": in every arrow the beloved shoots, it is seen that the shooter is not really the beloved and that a divine wisdom is at work. This allusion is noted in Özkat's footnote. In the fourth couplet the beloved's mouth is likened to a casket of ruby; the redness of the lips is expressed by the ruby and the smallness of the mouth by the casket. If one considers that in old medicine remedies were kept in small caskets, the words of the second line, "there is nothing in it for us but healing", complete the image of the casket; this connection is our own inference.
The fifth couplet says that it is unseemly to compare the beloved's stature to the pomegranate tree and the reed. The words "nā-revā" and "revā" come one after the other, and the line is built on repetition and contrast. The word "mā" in the sixth couplet means "water" in Arabic; the tears gathered on the lover's face are more than the sea. In the last couplet a link is made between the beloved's long hair and long life: Fazlî calls the length of the hair "‘ömr-i dırāz" and then utters an Arabic prayer, "May God lengthen his life for ever". The couplet brings the length of the hair and the length of life together in one expression; the ghazal closes its praise of beauty with this prayer as a good wish.
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. 302-303, ghazal no. 31 (Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Hazine, fol. 247a); also p. 69 (rhyme) and p. 107 (Arabic and Persian elements), https://katalog.marmara.edu.tr/veriler/yordambt/cokluortam/5E/T0051713.pdf.
Online sources
