Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mef‘ūlü Mefā‘īlü Mefā‘īlü Fe‘ūlün

Dīdārını dil-dāruñ iden kimse temāşā
İy ṣūfi cinān bāġına meyl eyleye ḥāşā
Ser-nāmesini itdi meger nāme-i ḥüsne
Münşī-i ezel idicek ol nāmeyi inşā
‘Āşıḳlıġumı bildi gören ḫūn-ı sirişküm
Zīrā mey ider ādemüñ esrārını ifşā
Göñlüme ne bend eylese ol şāh revādur
Kim didi aña kākül-i dil-bende ṭolaşa
İy Fażlī cemālin o perīnüñ gören ādem
Dīvāne olur bencileyin ḫūn-ı temāşā

In English

1. O Sufi, would anyone who gazes on the face of the beloved incline towards the gardens of paradise? God forbid.

2. When the Scribe of pre-eternity composed that letter, it seems he made (your face) the heading of the letter of beauty.

3. Whoever saw my bloody tears knew that I am a lover; for wine reveals a man's secrets.

4. Whatever bond that shah lays on my heart is deserved; who told it (my heart) to tangle itself in the heart-binding forelock?

5. O Fazlî, whoever sees the face of that fairy goes mad as I did. (The phrase "ḫūn-ı temāşā", "the blood of gazing", at the end of the line is obscure.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a ghazal (gazel) of five couplets, written in the "mef‘ūlü mefā‘īlü mefā‘īlü fe‘ūlün" pattern of the hezec family of aruz (quantitative metre). It has no redif; Özkat counts this ghazal among those with rich rhyme. The rhyme is formed by the sounds "-āşā/-aşa" in the words "temāşā, ḥāşā, inşā, ifşā, ṭolaşa, temāşā"; the word "temāşā" of the opening couplet is repeated in the closing couplet. According to Özkat's footnote, the word "temāşā" in the first line of the first couplet is written corruptly in the manuscript, and "ḥāşā" in the second line is written "ḫāşā". The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet. The ghazal is the thirty-fifth in Özkat's edition and is found only in the Fazlî divan section (fol. 248a) 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 first couplet is addressed to the Sufi and sets the beloved's face above paradise: whoever gazes on that face does not incline towards paradise. Placing the exclamation "ḥāşā" (God forbid) in the rhyme position voices a firm rejection of the Sufi's view, which holds paradise to be the highest good. In the second couplet creation is likened to the work of writing: God is "münşī-i ezel", the Scribe of pre-eternity, and the beloved's face is the heading written at the top of the letter called beauty. The words "ser-nāme" (heading), "nāme" (letter) and "inşā" (composition) form a congruence of images (tenasüp). Naming God as a craftsman recalls the comparison of the "Tailor of pre-eternity" in the nineteenth ghazal; there the tailor cuts the robe of coquetry, here the scribe writes the letter of beauty. That the opening and closing couplets both end with the same word "temāşā" (gazing) also opens and closes the ghazal with the idea of gazing.

The third couplet ends with a saying of wisdom: wine reveals a man's secrets. The lover's bloody tears are the colour of wine, and everyone who sees them understands that he is a lover; there is an implied comparison between tears and wine. In the fourth couplet the words "bend" (bond) and "dil-bend" (heart-binding), derived from the same root, are used side by side: the bond laid on the heart is the result of its own willing entanglement in the forelock. The last couplet uses the link between the fairy and the madman; the idea that whoever sees a fairy loses his mind is tied to the madness of whoever sees the beloved's face. Özkat gives this couplet as an example of the idiom "divâne olmak" (to go 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, p. 305, ghazal no. 35 (Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Hazine, fol. 248a); also p. 69 (rhyme), p. 91 (idioms) and pp. 119-120 (description of the manuscripts), https://katalog.marmara.edu.tr/veriler/yordambt/cokluortam/5E/T0051713.pdf.

Online sources