Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Milk-i şāhen-şāh olup geydiyse ger altunlu tāc
Germ olup öykünmesün billāhi ol māha sirāc
Yüzdeki ḫālüñ deger Rūm’uñ ḫarācı ḫüsrevā
Pādişehsin n’ola alsañ cümle ḫūbāndan ḫarāc
Cām-ı pür-mey yār-ı bī-aġyār ṣun bezm ehline
Sāḳiyā furṣat ġanīmet ġāfil olma gözüñ aç

In English

1. Even if the lamp (or the sun), being the property of the king of kings, has put on a golden crown, for God's sake let it not grow heated and try to imitate that moon (the beloved).

2. O sovereign, the mole on your face is worth the tribute of Rum (Anatolia); you are a padishah, what wonder if you take tribute from all the beauties?

3. O cupbearer, offer the people of the gathering the cup full of wine and the beloved free of rivals; seize the opportunity as a gift, do not be heedless, open your eyes.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The text we have consists of three couplets, written in the "fā‘ilātün 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/-aç" in the words "tāc, sirāc, ḫarāc, aç"; the joining of the Turkish verb "aç" (open, as in "open your eyes") in the last couplet to rhyme words of Arabic origin is noteworthy; this is our own observation. The ghazal is the fifty-fourth 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 gives it under the heading "incomplete ghazals rhyming in the letter cim", among those whose last couplets are missing; for this reason the couplet bearing the pen name (mahlas) has not come down to us either. It is not known to whom or when it was written.

In the ghazal section of the divan, Özkat gathers the ghazals whose beginning or end is missing because of lost pages into a separate group at the end of the letter in which they rhyme, and notes that these ghazals were not left unfinished by the poet but owe their state to missing pages in the miscellanies. According to him, among the 153 poems of the ghazal section there are 15 ghazals that could not be recovered in full because of lost or torn-out leaves.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

All three couplets speak the language of sovereignty. In the first couplet the "sirāc" (lamp, light) is imagined as having become the property of the king of kings and put on a golden crown; the likening of the golden-yellow flame to a crown rests on this conception. Yet however brightly it shines, this lamp should not try to imitate the beloved, who resembles the moon. The phrase "germ olmak" (to grow heated) denotes both the heat of fire and an eagerness that oversteps its bounds.

The second couplet is one that Özkat cites among the traces of social life in the poems. According to Özkat, the poet here likens the beloved to a padishah who takes tribute from all the beauties; in saying that a single mole on his face is equal to the tribute to be collected from all of Anatolia, and that to one possessing such wealth the tribute he collects can mean nothing, he emphasises the custom of binding conquered lands to tribute. The use of the word "ḫarāc" (tribute) twice in the same couplet is the figure of repetition (tekrir); the words "ḫüsrev" (sovereign), "pādişeh" and "ḫarāc" also form a congruence of images (tenasüp). The third couplet addresses the cupbearer and invites the gathering to a full cup and a beloved free of rivals. Özkat cites the second line of this couplet as an example of both the idioms "fırsatı ganimet bilmek" (to seize the opportunity as a gift) and "gözünü açmak" (to open one's eyes, to be alert). The counsel not to miss the opportunity ties the ghazal, in the last couplet we have, to the language of the libertine's gathering.

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. 316, ghazal no. 54 (Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Hazine, fol. 234b); also p. 43 (idioms), p. 62 (incomplete ghazals), p. 69 (rhyme), p. 80 (the custom of tribute), p. 92 (idioms) and pp. 119-120 (description of the manuscripts), https://katalog.marmara.edu.tr/veriler/yordambt/cokluortam/5E/T0051713.pdf.

Online sources