Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Zülfüñ-içün āh idersem eşk-i bī-pāyān yaġar
Bād-ı maġrib esse zīrā ḥükmdür bārān yaġar
Seyle virdi ḫūn-ı ‘āşıḳ kūyuñı şol resme kim
Dir görenler ne ‘alāmetdür ki gögden ḳan yaġar
Dil ‘aceb mi sen lebi cān-baḫşa ‘Īsī’dür disem
Aġız açsañ güft ü gūya leblerüñden cān yaġar
Bāġ-ı cān ḫurrem olur bārān raḥmetdür baña
Sīneme kim ġamze-i dil-dārdan peykān yaġar
Aġlasam āh eylesem gördükçe ruḫsāruñ n’ola
Nev-bahār eyyāmı eks̱er bād olur bārān yaġar
Her ḳaçan dendān u lā‘lüñ vaṣfın itmek istesem
Ebr-i nīsān gibi ḫālümden dür ü mercān yaġar
Dir şerār-ı āhumı iy Fażlī kūyuñda gören
Ne günāh itdüñ ki gögden āteş-i sūzān yaġar

In English

1. If I sigh for your tress, endless tears rain down; for it is ordained that when the west wind blows, rain falls.

2. The lover's blood has flooded your quarter so that those who see it say: "What sign is this, that blood rains from the sky?"

3. Heart, what wonder if I call you Jesus with the life-giving lip? If you open your mouth to speak, life rains from your lips.

4. As arrowheads rain on my breast from the beloved's glance, the garden of the soul grows glad; to me this is the rain of mercy.

5. What wonder if I weep and sigh whenever I see your cheek? In the days of spring there is mostly wind, and rain falls.

6. Whenever I wish to describe your teeth and ruby lip, pearls and coral rain from my state like the April cloud.

7. O Fazlî, whoever sees the sparks of my sighs in your quarter says: "What sin have you committed, that burning fire rains from the sky?"

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‘ilātün fā‘ilün" pattern of the remel family of aruz (quantitative metre). The redif (refrain word) is "yaġar" (rains, falls); Özkat counts this ghazal among those with a Turkish single-word redif. The rhyme is formed by the sound "-ān/-an" in the words "bī-pāyān, bārān, ḳan, cān, peykān, bārān, mercān, sūzān"; the phrase "bārān yaġar" (rain falls) occurs twice, in the first and fifth couplets. The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet. The ghazal is the fifty-ninth 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

In every couplet of the ghazal something "rains": tears, blood, life, arrowheads, rain, pearls and coral, fire. The first couplet appears in two places in Özkat's study. According to Özkat, in saying that when he sighs for the beloved's hair he will not be able to hold back his tears, the poet also touches on a belief widespread among the people of his time: "If the wind blows from the west, rain falls." Özkat also gives the same couplet among pithy sayings of which it is not known whether they were used as proverbs among the people. In the couplet the sigh is likened to wind and the tears to rain; a connection may also be felt between the word "maġrib" (west) and the darkness of the tress, but this is our own interpretation.

The fifth couplet carries the same comparison into spring: the lover weeps and sighs whenever he sees the beloved's rose-like cheek, just as wind blows and rain falls in spring. Özkat cites this couplet among the examples of the figure of leff ü neşr (enumeration and later matching): the weeping and sighing in the first line are answered by rain and wind in the second. There is also a congruence of images (tenasüp) between the rose-like cheek and "nev-bahār" (spring). The second and seventh couplets are built on the same pattern: those who see blood and fire raining in the quarter ask what it is a sign of. In the third couplet the beloved's lip is likened to Jesus; when he speaks, life rains from his lips. In the fourth couplet the arrows raining from the glance are counted as the rain of mercy; regarding pain as a blessing is a familiar stance of the divan lover. In the sixth couplet, through the image of "ebr-i nīsān" (the April cloud), which rests on the belief that April rain turns to pearls, the teeth are likened to pearls and the lip to coral.

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. 319, ghazal no. 59 (Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Hazine, fol. 235a); also p. 69 (redifs), p. 80 (popular beliefs), p. 84 (figures of speech), p. 89 (pithy sayings) and pp. 119-120 (description of the manuscripts), https://katalog.marmara.edu.tr/veriler/yordambt/cokluortam/5E/T0051713.pdf.

Online sources