Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Leblerüñ iy ḥūr cāna āb-ı Kevs̱er’den leẕīẕ
Acı acı dillerüñ pālūde-i terden leẕīẕ
Āb-ı ḥayvān var iken lā‘lüñe meyl eyler göñül
Nesne gelmez ṭūṭiye pes şehd ü sükkerden leẕīẕ
Ruḫlaruñla leblerüñ vaṣfında eş‘ārum benüm
Dōstum bīmār-ı ‘ışḳa āb-ı Kevs̱er’den leẕīẕ
Sögdügüñce ben du‘ā itdügüm içün sen girü
Sögsen iy dilber baña ḳand-i mükerrerden leẕīẕ
Fażliyā var mı cihānda bāġ-ı ‘ışḳ içre ‘aceb
Būse-i lā‘l-i leb-i cān-baḫş-ı dilberden leẕīẕ

In English

1. O houri, your lips are more delicious to the soul than the water of Kevser; your tongues that speak so bitterly are more delicious than fresh pālūde (a sweet jelly).

2. While the water of life is there, the heart inclines towards your ruby lip; so nothing seems more delicious to the parrot than honey and sugar.

3. My friend, my poems describing your cheeks and lips are more delicious to the one sick with love than the water of Kevser.

4. Since I pray for you as often as you curse me, O beloved, if you curse me still, it is more delicious than twice-refined sugar.

5. O Fazlî, is there anything in the world, in the garden of love, more delicious than a kiss from the life-giving ruby lip of the beloved?

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 "-den leẕīẕ" (more delicious than); Özkat counts this ghazal among those whose redif is a group made of a suffix and Turkish and Arabic elements. The rhyme is formed by the sound "-er" in the words "Kevs̱er, ter, sükker, Kevs̱er, mükerrer, dilber"; the second lines of the first and third couplets end with the same phrase "āb-ı Kevs̱er'den leẕīẕ". The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet in the form "Fażliyā". The ghazal is the fifty-sixth in Özkat's edition and does not appear in the miscellany in the Hazine collection of the Topkapı Palace Museum Library; the text rests only on Pervâne Beg's anthology of response poems "Mecmû‘atü'n-Nezâ'ir", Bağdat Köşkü 406 (fol. 117a), and Özkat takes it from the text in Yakup Yılmaz's thesis. It is not known to whom or when it was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

In each couplet the ghazal names a sweet or a sacred drink and says that something belonging to the beloved is more delicious than it. In the first couplet the beloved's lips are more delicious than the water of Kevser, the river of paradise, and the tongue that speaks bitter words more delicious than fresh pālūde, a kind of sweet; the contrast between "acı acı" (bitterly) and "leẕīẕ" (delicious) recalls the play of bitter and sweet in the previous ghazal. In the second couplet the heart is likened to a parrot: even with the water of life at hand the heart wants the beloved's lip, for to the parrot nothing is sweeter than honey and sugar. The idea in divan poetry that the parrot is fed on sugar and speaks as it eats sugar sets up this bond between heart and lip.

In the third couplet the delight turns to the poet's own poetry: poems describing the beloved's cheeks and lips taste sweeter than Kevser to the one sick with love. In the fourth couplet the lover answers the beloved's curses with prayers and ranks the curse above "ḳand-i mükerrer", twice-refined sugar; the idea of returning sweetness for a curse is a frequent stance of the lover in divan poetry. The last couplet takes the form of a question and places the kiss from the lip above all delights. The epithet "cān-baḫş" (life-giving) continues the lip's connection with the water of life. The words şehd (honey), sükker (sugar), ḳand (loaf sugar) and pālūde form a congruence of images (tenasüp) throughout the ghazal.

The Nazire Relation

According to Özkat, this ghazal was written as a nazire (response poem) to İshak Çelebi's ghazal whose opening couplet is "Cān firāḳına dehānuñ şehd ü sükkerden leẕīẕ / Būseñüñ bir kerresi ḳand-i mükerrerden leẕīẕ", and this ghazal of İshak Çelebi's was answered by nine poets (Zâtî, Fazlî, Enverî, Nutkî, Mihrî Hatun, Sâfî [Cezerî Kâsım Paşa], Hasan Çelebi, Nazmî and Nasûhî) with one ghazal each. Özkat names İshak Çelebi as İshak Çelebi of Skopje and gives his date of death, with a question mark, as 1537. That the Amasya woman poet Mihrî Hatun is among those who wrote nazires makes the ghazal of particular interest for the literature of Amasya. Fazlî keeps İshak Çelebi's metre and the redif "-den leẕīẕ"; the phrases "şehd ü sükker" (honey and sugar) and "ḳand-i mükerrer" of İshak Çelebi's opening couplet are used again in Fazlî's second and fourth couplets. 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, pp. 317-318, ghazal no. 56 (Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Bağdat Köşkü 406, fol. 117a); also p. 69 (redifs), pp. 96 and 100-101 (response poems), https://katalog.marmara.edu.tr/veriler/yordambt/cokluortam/5E/T0051713.pdf.
  • Yakup Yılmaz, Pervâne Beg Nazire Mecmuası (99b-129a): Transkripsiyonlu, Edisyon Kritikli Metin, unpublished MA thesis, Marmara University Institute of Turkic Studies, Istanbul 2001, pp. 123-127 (as cited by Özkat). katalog.marmara.edu.tr