Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Çeşm-i ser-mestüñden olmışdı göñül iy yār mest
Şevḳ-i cām-ı lā‘l-i nābuñ eyledi tekrār mest
Leblerüñ yādına ‘ālem şöyle düşdi bādeye
Sāḳiyā çeşmüñ gibi her gūşede biñ var mest
Lā‘lüñe geh cām u geh mey virse dil olmaz ‘aceb
Sāḳiyā eyler ġalaṭ çünkim ide güftār mest
Mestdür çeşmüñ ‘aceb mi ḳatlüme ḳaṣd eylese
Ḳan ider cānā olıcaḳ merdüm-i ‘ayyār mest
Fażlī’nüñ yārān ṣorarsa ḥālin iy dil diyesin
Gūşe-i mey-ḫānede düşmiş yatur evkār mest

In English

1. O beloved, the heart had grown drunk from your languid eye; its longing for the cup of your pure ruby lip has made it drunk again.

2. For the sake of your lips the world has so fallen to wine that, O cupbearer, in every corner there are a thousand drunkards like your eye.

3. O cupbearer, it is no wonder if the heart calls your ruby lip now a cup, now wine; for when a drunkard speaks he errs.

4. Your eye is drunk; is it any wonder if it sets out to kill me? O soul, a cunning man (the pupil of the eye) sheds blood when he is drunk.

5. O heart, if friends ask after Fazlî's state, say: he lies fallen, drunk, in a corner of the tavern. (The sense of the word "evkār" in the line is not clear.)

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 "mest" (drunk); Özkat counts this ghazal among those with a Persian single-word redif. The rhyme is formed by the sound "-ār/-ar" in the words "yār, tekrār, var, güftār, ‘ayyār, evkār". According to Özkat's footnote, the manuscript has "dōst" for "mest" in the first line of the first couplet. The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet. The ghazal is the forty-third in Özkat's edition and the first of the ghazals rhyming in the letter te; it is found only in the Fazlî divan section (fol. 233a) 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 word "mest" in the redif turns the ghazal into a picture of drunkenness: the heart, the world, the beloved's eye and finally Fazlî himself are drunk. The first couplet tells of two drunkennesses of the heart: first the beloved's languid eye made it drunk, then the longing for the cup of the ruby lip renewed this drunkenness. A congruence of images (tenasüp) is drawn between eye and lip, "çeşm-i ser-mest" (drunken eye) and "cām-ı lā‘l" (ruby cup). In the second couplet the world, remembering the beloved's lips, has fallen to wine, and in every corner there are thousands of drunkards like his eye; the likening of the beloved's languid eye to a drunkard is common in divan poetry. The phrase "leblerüñ yādına" (for the sake of your lips) recalls the custom of raising a cup to someone in a gathering; the whole world has joined in this toast.

The third couplet explains the likening of the ruby lip now to a cup, now to wine, by the drunkard's error; this ties a comparison to a poetic cause. In the fourth couplet the word "merdüm" means both "man" and "pupil of the eye" and forms a double entendre (tevriye): a cunning man may shed blood when drunk, and the pupil of the beloved's drunken eye may set out to kill the lover. The last couplet closes the ghazal with Fazlî's own state; the drunken lover lying fallen in a corner of the tavern is a plain picture of the libertine's (rind) bearing.

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. 309, ghazal no. 43 (Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Hazine, fol. 233a); also p. 69 (redifs) and pp. 119-120 (description of the manuscripts), https://katalog.marmara.edu.tr/veriler/yordambt/cokluortam/5E/T0051713.pdf.

Online sources