Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

İy Mesīḥā-dem leb-i cān-baḫşuña cānum fedā
Zülf-i kāfir-kīşüñe dīnüm hem īmānum fedā
Cān ile dildür cihānda varı yoġı bendeñüñ
Cümlesi olsun senüñ yoluña sulṭānum fedā
İy gözüm nūrı daḫı nem evlā’ dirsin dünyede
Ḫāk-ı rāh-ı kūyuña bu çeşm-i giryānum fedā
Tek ḳabūl itsünler iy dil-dār ben bī-çāreden
İtlerüñe üstüḫᵛān-ı cism-i sūzānum fedā
Fażlī’yem ben ḳanumı dökmek dilerse dōstum
Ḫançer-i ḫūn-rīz ü ḫūn-efşānuña ḳanum fedā

In English

1. O you whose breath is like the Messiah's, my soul is a sacrifice to your soul-giving lip; my religion and my faith are a sacrifice to your tresses of unbelieving creed.

2. All that your servant has in the world is his soul and his heart; my sultan, let them all be a sacrifice on your path.

3. O light of my eye, you ask what more precious thing I have in the world (to offer you); here, this weeping eye of mine is a sacrifice to the dust of the road to your street.

4. O heart-holder, if only they would accept it from me, the helpless one; the bones of my burning body are a sacrifice to your dogs.

5. I am Fazlî; if my friend wishes to shed my blood, my blood is a sacrifice to his blood-shedding, blood-scattering dagger.

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 "-um fedā" (my ... is a sacrifice); 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/-an" in the words "cān, īmān, sulṭān, giryān, sūzān, ḳan". The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet, not in the usual form of address but in a sentence of self-introduction, "Fażlī'yem ben" (I am Fazlî). The ghazal is the thirty-ninth in Özkat's edition and is found only in the Fazlî divan section (fol. 248b) 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

Around the word "feda" (sacrifice) in the redif, the ghazal builds a series of offerings: couplet by couplet the lover devotes to the beloved his soul, his religion, his faith, all he has, his eye, his bones and his blood. In the first couplet there is an allusion (telmih) to the belief that Jesus raised the dead with his breath; the beloved's lip too is "Mesīḥā-dem", with the breath of the Messiah, and gives life. In the second line the tresses are likened by their darkness to unbelief and called "kāfir-kīş" (of unbelieving creed); the lover sacrifices his religion and faith to this unbelief. Contrasts are drawn between lip and tresses, soul and religion, giving life and unbelief. Özkat counts "varı yoğu" (all one has) in the second couplet among his examples of idioms; the contrast between "bende" (servant) and "sulṭān" carries the couplet.

In the third couplet there is a congruence of images (tenasüp) between the address "gözüm nūrı" (light of my eye) and the "çeşm-i giryān" (weeping eye) that is offered; the lover offers his eye to the beloved who is the light of his eye. The link between the dust of the street and the eye is tied to the image, in divan poetry, of the dust of the beloved's road being applied to the eye like kohl. The fourth couplet is the furthest point of the lover's self-abasement: he offers the bones of his burning body to the beloved's dogs and counts even their acceptance a favour. In the last couplet the Turkish word for blood, "ḳan", is used together with its Persian equivalent "ḫūn"; Özkat gives this couplet as an example of the idiom "kan dökmek" (to shed blood).

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. 307, ghazal no. 39 (Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Hazine, fol. 248b); also p. 69 (redifs), pp. 92-93 (idioms) and pp. 119-120 (description of the manuscripts), https://katalog.marmara.edu.tr/veriler/yordambt/cokluortam/5E/T0051713.pdf.

Online sources