Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fā‘ilātün Fā‘ilātün Fā‘ilün

Eylemez Dārā’ya ‘arż-ı iḥtiyāc
Pādişehdür her gedā bī-taḫt u tāc
İy ṭabīb-i cān u dil dermānı ḳo
Derd-mend-i ‘ışḳa derdüñdür ‘ilāc
Göñlüm ayaġa ṣalup itme şikest
Ḫoş degüldür pāy-māl olmaḳ zücāc
‘Āleme meşhūr olaldan leblerüñ
Müşg-i Çīn’e ḳalmadı hergiz revāc
Būseden men‘ itme cānā Fażlī’yi
Ḫoş degül ehl-i kerem itmek lecāc

In English

1. (The beggar of love) does not lay his need before Dârâ (the king); every beggar is a padishah without throne or crown.

2. O physician of soul and heart, leave the cure aside; for the one stricken by love, the pain you give is the remedy.

3. Do not throw my heart under foot and break it; it is not pleasant for glass to be trampled under foot.

4. Ever since your lips became famous in the world, the musk of China has had no more currency at all.

5. O beloved, do not forbid Fazlî a kiss; it is not pleasant for the people of generosity to be obstinate.

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‘ilün" pattern of the remel family of aruz (quantitative metre). It has no redif; Özkat counts this ghazal among those with rich rhyme. The rhyme is formed by the sound "-āc" in the words "iḥtiyāc, tāc, ‘ilāc, zücāc, revāc, lecāc". The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet. The ghazal is the fifty-second in Özkat's edition and is found only in the Fazlî divan section (fol. 234b) of the miscellany in the Hazine collection of the Topkapı Palace Museum Library. Özkat adds two manuscript notes: the word "bī-taḫt" (without throne) in the second line of the first couplet is written "taḥt" in the manuscript because one of its dots was forgotten; and "lecāc" in the last couplet is written in this form for the sake of the metre, the original word being "leccāc", meaning "obstinate". It is not known to whom or when it was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The first couplet expresses the wealth of heart that love gives: the beggar of love does not lay his need even before Dârâ, a name of ancient Persian kings regarded in divan poetry as the symbol of sovereignty, for every beggar is a padishah without throne or crown. The contrast between "gedā" (beggar) and "pādişeh" (padishah) and the congruence of images (tenasüp) among "taḫt" (throne), "tāc" (crown) and "pādişeh" carry the couplet. In the second couplet the beloved is called the physician of soul and heart; yet the one stricken by love finds healing not in the cure but in the pain the beloved gives. This reversed relation between pain and cure is a familiar expression in divan poetry of the lover's counting the suffering of love as a blessing.

In the third couplet the heart is likened to glass. "Ayaġa ṣalmak" (to throw under foot) and "pāy-māl olmak" (to be trampled under foot) repeat the same meaning in two languages; the broken heart is like trampled glass. In the fourth couplet, once the beloved's lips have become famous, the value of the musk of China falls. In the last couplet the lover asks a kiss of the beloved, who is expected to be generous, and says that obstinacy does not become "the people of generosity". Most of the rhyme words are of Arabic origin, and since the sound "-āc", which Özkat counts as rich rhyme, is a combination rarely found in Turkish, it gives the ghazal a distinctive cadence; this last observation is our own.

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. 314, ghazal no. 52 (Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Hazine, fol. 234b); also p. 69 (rhyme) and pp. 119-120 (description of the manuscripts), https://katalog.marmara.edu.tr/veriler/yordambt/cokluortam/5E/T0051713.pdf.

Online sources