Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Bir ḳaḥpe durur zişt bu dünyā-yı mü’ennes̱
Meyl eyleme merd iseñ aña olma muḫannes̱
Mey-ḫāneye ayaḳ getür iy ṣūfi şarāb iç
Ḫalvetde murabba‘ oturup içme müs̱elles̱
Men‘ eyler imiş ‘āşıḳı maḥbūb ile meyden
Gör kim ne ḫabās̱etler ider ṣūfi-i aḫbes̱
Cārū-yı mey-i nāb ile pāk it ḳoma ṣūfī
Dil āyinesin gird-i riyā ile mülevves̱
Fażlī gibi bir merd gerek ṣūfi yaraşmaz
Meydān-ı muḥabbetde senüñ gibi muḫannes̱

In English

1. This feminine world is a foul harlot; if you are a man, do not incline towards her, do not be unmanly.

2. O Sufi, set foot in the tavern (bring the cup) and drink wine; do not sit cross-legged (square) in your retreat and drink müselles.

3. It seems he forbids the lover the beloved and wine; behold what foulness that foulest of Sufis commits.

4. Sufi, sweep the mirror of the heart clean with the broom of pure wine; do not leave it soiled with the dust of hypocrisy.

5. A man like Fazlî is needed; O Sufi, an unmanly one like you does not befit the field of love.

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 half rhyme. The rhyme is formed by the sound "-es̱" at the end of the words "mü’ennes̱, muḫannes̱, müs̱elles̱, aḫbes̱, mülevves̱, muḫannes̱"; "muḫannes̱" of the opening couplet is repeated in the closing couplet. The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet. Özkat counts this ghazal among Fazlî's yek-âhenk ghazals, those in which every couplet is of equal strength. The ghazal is the forty-seventh in Özkat's edition and is found only in the Fazlî divan section (fol. 233b) 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

Özkat gives the first and last couplets of this ghazal as examples of Fazlî's didactic poems with mystical features that voice the transience of the world; in his view the poet pays little attention to lyricism in such poems and does not neglect to criticise raw Sufis. In the first couplet the world is likened to a foul harlot; since the word "dünyā" is grammatically feminine in Arabic, the epithet "mü’ennes̱" describes both the feminine word and the world imagined as a woman. The contrast between "merd" (man, hero) and "muḫannes̱" (unmanly) sets up the opposition of courage and cowardice that runs through the poem. According to Özkat, in the last couplet Fazlî accuses the Sufi of cowardice on the field of love and sees himself as the only hero of that field.

The second couplet is among Özkat's examples of double entendre (tevriye). The word "ayaḳ" means both "foot" and "cup"; the Sufi is called both to set foot in the tavern and to bring the cup. "Murabba‘" (square) describes sitting cross-legged in a retreat and forms a congruence of images (tenasüp) with the word "müs̱elles̱" (triangle); "müs̱elles̱" is at the same time the name of a must boiled down to a third. Thus the drink the Sufi takes secretly in his retreat is played off against the words square and triangle. In the third couplet "ḫabās̱et" (foulness) and "aḫbes̱" (foulest) come from the same root. In the fourth couplet the heart is a mirror, hypocrisy the dust upon it, and pure wine the broom that sweeps the dust away.

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. 311, ghazal no. 47 (Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Hazine, fol. 233b); also pp. 63-64 (subjects of the ghazals), p. 69 (rhyme), pp. 75-76 (mystical subjects), p. 85 (double entendre) and pp. 119-120 (description of the manuscripts), https://katalog.marmara.edu.tr/veriler/yordambt/cokluortam/5E/T0051713.pdf.

Online sources