Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

İçmege yār ile pür-ṣāfī ṣafādan kim ḳaçar
Ṣūfi inṣāf eyleye ṣāfī ṣafādan kim ḳaçar
Cüft olup aġyāre tek mihr ü vefālar itmesün
‘Āşıḳa yār itdügi cevr ü cefādan kim ḳaçar
Derd odur kim yārüñi aġyāre hem-dem göresin
Yoḫsa rāh-ı ‘ışḳda derd ü belādan kim ḳaçar
Bir lebi ‘Īsī ki geh geh būsesinden cān vire
Yolına ölmeklige ol dil-rübādan kim ḳaçar
Biñ kez ursañ tīġ-ı cevri Fażlī’ye dönmez yüzi
İy kemān ebrū vefādur ol vefādan kim ḳaçar

In English

1. Who would flee from the delight of drinking the brimming pure (wine) with the beloved? Let the Sufi be fair: who flees from pure delight?

2. Let (the beloved) not pair with the rivals and show love and loyalty to them alone; otherwise, who flees from the cruelty and torment the beloved inflicts on the lover?

3. The real pain is to see your beloved intimate with the rivals; otherwise, who flees from pain and affliction on the path of love?

4. Who would flee from dying on the path of that heart-stealer, whose lip is like Jesus and who now and then gives life with a kiss?

5. Strike Fazlî a thousand times with the sword of cruelty, he will not turn his face away; O you with brows like a bow, this is loyalty, who flees from that loyalty?

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 the phrase "-dan kim ḳaçar" (who flees from); Özkat counts this ghazal among those whose redif is a group made of a suffix and a Turkish word. The rhyme is formed by the sound "-ā" in the words "ṣafā, ṣafā, cefā, belā, dil-rübā, vefā"; both lines of the opening couplet end with "ṣafādan kim ḳaçar". The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet. The ghazal is the fifty-seventh in Özkat's edition and is found only in the Fazlî divan section (fol. 235a) of the miscellany in the Hazine collection of the Topkapı Palace Museum Library. It is not known to whom or when it was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

All the couplets of the ghazal end with a question, and each question shows something from which the lover does not flee: the delight of the wine gathering, the beloved's torment, the affliction of the path of love, dying for the beloved, and loyalty. The opening couplet is one of Özkat's examples of the figure of derivation (iştikak): the words "ṣāfī" (pure), "ṣafā" (delight) and "ṣūfi" are built from the same or a close root and the same sounds, so that a closeness of sound arises between the "pure delight" the Sufi avoids and his own name. The call to the Sufi for "inṣāf" (fairness) also joins this chain of sounds.

In the second couplet there is a contrast between "cüft" (pair) and "tek" (single, alone): the beloved's pairing with the rivals and showing loyalty to them alone wounds the lover, while her torment does not. The third couplet states the same idea openly: for the lover the real pain is to see the beloved together with the rivals; the familiar afflictions of the path of love do not frighten him. In the fourth couplet the beloved's lip is likened to Jesus; the belief that Jesus raised the dead with his breath is tied to the image of the lip that gives life with a kiss. Özkat gives this couplet as an example of the idiom "yoluna ölmek" (to die for someone's sake). In the last couplet a scene of battle is set up by likening the brow to a bow and cruelty to a sword; though the sword falls a thousand times, the lover does not turn his face away and calls this "loyalty".

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. 318, ghazal no. 57 (Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Hazine, fol. 235a); also p. 69 (redifs), p. 83 (figures of speech), p. 93 (idioms) and pp. 119-120 (description of the manuscripts), https://katalog.marmara.edu.tr/veriler/yordambt/cokluortam/5E/T0051713.pdf.

Online sources