Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Virdi şöhret ṣubḥ-veş mihrüñde ṣādıḳlıḳ baña
Āfitābum gögden inmiş gibi ‘āşıḳlıḳ baña
Eylerüm bir cām-ile biñ ġuṣṣa derdine ‘ilāc
Bilmezem yā Rab ne ḥikmetdür bu ḥāẕıḳlıḳ baña
Gāh mest ü gāh ḥayrān olduġum zāhid budur
Rind-i ‘ayyāşam yaraşmaz hīç ayıḳlıḳ baña
Çün senüñ ‘aceb benüm kārum hemīşe ‘öẕrdür
Pārsālıḳ saña var iy şeyḫ fāsıḳlıḳ baña
Ḥüsn-i tab‘ ile n’ola mümtāz olursam Fażliyā
Bir cebellī ḥāldür fennümde fāyıḳlıḳ baña

In English

1. My faithfulness to your love (your sun) has given me fame like the breaking of the dawn; it has given me lovership as if my sun had come down from the sky. (The time before sunrise is called "ṣubḥ-ı ṣādıḳ", the true dawn; the poet has become known for his faithfulness to love, like the dawn that is faithful to the sun.)

2. With one cup I cure the pain of a thousand sorrows; O Lord, I do not know by what wisdom this physician's skill has been given to me.

3. O ascetic, this is my state: now drunk, now bewildered; I am a pleasure-loving profligate, sobriety does not suit me at all.

4. Yours is self-conceit, mine is ever to beg pardon; O sheikh, piety is for you, sinfulness for me. (The first word of the line has the form "‘aceb" in the edition; sense and metre suggest the reading "‘ucb", self-conceit.)

5. O Fazlî, is it any wonder if I am distinguished by a fine nature? Excellence in my art is an innate state for me.

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 "-lıḳ baña"; the rhyme is formed by the sound "-ıḳ" in the words "ṣādıḳ, ‘āşıḳ, ḥāẕıḳ, ayıḳ, fāsıḳ, fāyıḳ". In classifying the redifs, Özkat counts this ghazal among those whose redif consists of a suffix and a Turkish word. The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet in the form "Fażliyā". The ghazal stands fifth in the section of ghazals that Özkat arranged in alphabetical order, and it is found only in the Fazlî divan section (fol. 217a) of the miscellany in the Hazine collection of the Topkapı Palace Museum Library. According to Özkat, Fazlî wrote most of his ghazals, like this one, in five couplets. It is not known to whom or when the ghazal was written.

The first line of the fourth couplet reads in the edition "Çün senüñ ‘aceb benüm kārum hemīşe ‘öẕrdür". With the word "‘aceb" (strange) both the metre breaks and the sense becomes obscure; read as "‘ucb" (self-conceit), the line fits both the metre and the couplet's opposition of sheikh and profligate. It has been rendered into modern prose with this reading.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal is built on divan poetry's familiar opposition of the profligate (rind) and the ascetic (zahid). The speaker introduces himself as a "rind-i ‘ayyāş" (pleasure-loving profligate) and in each couplet claims a quality for himself: faithfulness, lovership, skill, lack of sobriety, sinfulness and excellence. The word "baña" (to me) in the redif gathers all these qualities upon the lover.

The first couplet is built on a double entendre (tevriye). "Ṣādıḳlıḳ" relates both to faithfulness and to "ṣubḥ-ı ṣādıḳ", the name of the true dawn. The dawn, because it gives birth to the sun, is counted faithful to it; the word "mihr" too means both sun and love. Thus the lover's attachment to love and the dawn's attachment to the sun are expressed in the same words. In the second couplet wine is likened to a medicine, and the drinker to a skilled physician who cures a thousand pains with a single cup; the word "ḥāẕıḳ" expresses skill in medicine. In the third couplet drunkenness and bewilderment are set side by side; sobriety does not suit the profligate.

The fourth couplet is an example of contrast and of leff ü neşr (parallel arrangement): in the first line the sheikh's "‘ucb" (self-conceit) is compared with the lover's "‘öẕr" (plea for pardon), in the second the sheikh's "pārsālıḳ" (piety) with the lover's "fāsıḳlıḳ" (sinfulness). Against the self-satisfied pious man, the sinner who begs pardon is the side preferred in the tradition of the profligate. In the closing couplet the poet speaks of his excellence in poetry as an innate state; the word "cebellī" has the sense of "cibillî" (innate).

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. 286, ghazal no. 5 (Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Hazine, fol. 217a); also pp. 61-62 (on the ghazals), p. 69 (redifs) and pp. 119-120 (description of the manuscripts), https://katalog.marmara.edu.tr/veriler/yordambt/cokluortam/5E/T0051713.pdf.

Online sources