Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Çün ‘adū-yı dīn-imiş zāhid şarāb-ı ḫōş-güvār
Ḳanını içmek anuñ ‘uşşāḳa olmışdur revā
Her ne dem Fażlī cemālüñ görse ister vuṣlatuñ
Kim seḥer vaḳtinde dirler müstecāb olur du‘ā

In English

1. O ascetic, since that pleasant wine is, it seems, an enemy of the faith, drinking its blood has become lawful for lovers.

2. Whenever Fazlî sees your beauty he asks for union with you; for they say that prayer made at dawn is answered.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The text that survives consists of two couplets, written in the "fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün" pattern of the remel family of aruz (quantitative metre). It has no redif; Özkat counts this ghazal among those with full rhyme. The rhyme is formed by the sound "-ā" at the end of the words "revā" and "du‘ā". The first couplet is not an opening couplet; Özkat places this ghazal in the group of incomplete ghazals rhyming in alif "whose first couplets are missing". The last surviving couplet is the closing couplet with the pen name (mahlas). The ghazal is the fortieth in Özkat's edition and is found only 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.

In the ghazal section of the divan, Özkat gathers the ghazals whose beginning or end is missing because of lost pages into a separate group at the end of the letter in which they rhyme, and notes that these ghazals were not left unfinished by the poet but owe their state to missing pages in the miscellanies. According to him, among the 153 poems of the ghazal section there are 15 ghazals that could not be recovered in full because of lost or torn-out leaves. This ghazal is one of them, and Özkat records it as two couplets.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The first couplet turns the familiar quarrel between the libertine (rind) and the ascetic into a game of logic. In the ascetic's eyes wine is an enemy of the faith; and shedding the blood of an enemy of the faith is held lawful. From these two premises the lover draws a surprising conclusion: then drinking the blood of wine, that is, drinking wine, is lawful for lovers. The likening of red wine to blood makes the wit of the couplet possible. Özkat gives this couplet as an example of the idiom "kanını içmek" (to drink someone's blood).

The second couplet is among Özkat's examples of proverbs; the saying used in it runs "Seher vaktinde yapılan dualar kabul olur" (prayers made at dawn are answered). The lover explains by this saying why he asks for union every time he sees the beloved's beauty; thus an implied comparison between the beloved's face and the hour of dawn can be sensed in the couplet: to see that face is like reaching the morning hour when prayers are answered.

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. 40 (Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Hazine, fol. 247a); also pp. 61-62 (incomplete ghazals), p. 69 (rhyme), p. 90 (proverbs), p. 93 (idioms) and pp. 119-120 (description of the manuscripts), https://katalog.marmara.edu.tr/veriler/yordambt/cokluortam/5E/T0051713.pdf.

Online sources