Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fā‘ilātün Fā‘ilātün Fā‘ilün

Cevr-i bī-pāyān elinden el-ġıyās̱
Derd-i bī-dermān elinden el-ġıyās̱
El virür aġyāra her-dem iy göñül
Āh ol fettān elinden el-ġıyās̱
Sırr-ı ‘ışḳı ‘āleme fāş eyledi
Dīde-i giryān elinden el-ġıyās̱
Göñlüme ayaḳ ṭolayup bend ider
Kākül-i cānān elinden el-ġıyās̱
Milket-i diller yaḳıldı ẓulm ile
Ẓulm-ı bī-ḥād ḫān elinden el-ġıyās̱
Ra‘d-veş gögde melekler iñledi
İtdügüm efġān elinden el-ġıyās̱
Şem‘-veş yaḳdı derūnum Fażliyā
Sīne-i sūzān elinden el-ġıyās̱

In English

1. Help against the hand of endless cruelty; help against the hand of pain that has no cure.

2. O heart, (the beloved) gives a hand to the rivals at every moment; ah, help against the hand of that mischief-maker.

3. It has revealed the secret of love to the world; help against the hand of the weeping eye. (The tears have betrayed the love.)

4. It trips up my heart and binds it; help against the hand of the beloved's forelock.

5. The realm of hearts has been burned with tyranny; help against the hand of that khan of boundless tyranny. (In the text of Pervâne Beg's anthology the line reads "against the hand of unjust people".)

6. Through the laments I have uttered the angels in heaven groaned like thunder; help.

7. O Fazlî, my inner self has burned like a candle; help against the hand of my burning breast.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a ghazal (gazel) of seven couplets, written in the "fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün" pattern of the remel family of aruz (quantitative metre). The redif (refrain word) is the phrase "elinden el-ġıyās̱" (help against the hand of); Özkat counts this ghazal among those with a Turkish-Arabic word-group redif. The rhyme is formed by the sound "-ān" in the words "bī-pāyān, bī-dermān, fettān, giryān, cānān, ḫān, efġān, sūzān". The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet in the form "Fażliyā". The ghazal is the fiftieth in Özkat's edition; it is found in the Fazlî divan section (fol. 234a) of the miscellany in the Hazine collection of the Topkapı Palace Museum Library and in Pervâne Beg's anthology of response poems, Bağdat Köşkü 406 (fol. 94a). Özkat compares the anthology text from H. İbrahim Demirkazık's thesis. According to his notes, the words "bī-ḥad ḫān" (khan without limit) in the second line of the fifth couplet read "bī-dād ḫalḳ" (unjust people) in Demirkazık's text; in addition, one of the couplets stands sixth in that text, so the order of couplets in the two texts does not fully coincide.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal lists one by one everything that burns the lover and cries for help "against the hand" of each: endless cruelty, pain without cure, the beloved who gives a hand to the rivals, the eye that betrays the secret, the forelock that trips the heart, the khan of boundless tyranny, the lament that makes heaven groan, and the breast that burns like a candle. The word "el" (hand) of the redif reappears in the second couplet in the idiom "el virür" (gives a hand); a play of sound and meaning is set up between the beloved's giving a hand to the rivals and the lover's complaining against that hand; this is our own observation. Özkat cites this couplet as an example of the idiom "el vermek" (to give a hand, to favour) and the fourth couplet as an example of "ayak dolamak" (to trip someone up). In the fourth couplet the forelock is a bond winding round the feet of the heart; thinking of the tress as a snare and a bond is among the familiar images of divan poetry.

In the fifth couplet the heart is likened to a realm and the beloved to a khan who burns that realm with tyranny. In the sixth couplet the lover's lament echoes in heaven like thunder and makes the angels groan; this is an exaggerated form of the idea, common in divan poetry, that the lover's sigh reaches the heavens. The candle image comes in the last couplet: the lover's inner self burns with the fire in his breast, as a candle burns and melts in its own flame. The building of the words "bī-pāyān" (endless) and "bī-dermān" (without cure) in the first couplet on the same pattern, with the prefix "bī-" meaning "without", also adds cadence to the couplet.

The Nazire Relation

According to Özkat, this ghazal was written as a nazire (response poem) to Ahmed Paşa's ghazal whose opening couplet is "Ṭurra-i cānān elinden el-ġıyās̱ / Yandum ol s̱u‘bān elinden el-ġıyās̱", and this ghazal of Ahmed Paşa's was answered by four ghazals, by Şem‘î, Muhibbî, Nazmî and Fazlî. Özkat names Ahmed Paşa (d. 1497), together with Şeyhî and Necâtî, as one of the three greatest poets of the fifteenth century and notes that Fazlî wrote a nazire only to this one ghazal of his. Fazlî keeps Ahmed Paşa's metre, the redif "elinden el-ġıyās̱" and the rhyme in "-ān" unchanged. In Ahmed Paşa's opening couplet the beloved's lock of hair is likened to a dragon (s̱u‘bān); the forelock that trips the heart in Fazlî's fourth couplet recalls this image, but this is a comparison of our own and is not found in Özkat.

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. 313, ghazal no. 50 (Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Hazine, fol. 234a; Bağdat Köşkü 406, fol. 94a); also p. 69 (redifs), pp. 90 and 92 (idioms), p. 96 (response poems) and pp. 119-120 (description of the manuscripts), https://katalog.marmara.edu.tr/veriler/yordambt/cokluortam/5E/T0051713.pdf.
  • H. İbrahim Demirkazık, Pervâne Beg Nazire Mecmuası (67b-100b): Transkripsiyonlu, Edisyon Kritikli Metin, unpublished MA thesis, Marmara University Institute of Turkic Studies, Istanbul 2002, pp. 184-186 (as cited by Özkat). katalog.marmara.edu.tr