Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mefā‘īlün Mefā‘īlün Mefā‘īlün Mefā‘īlün

Ṣaçuñ ṣu üstine seccāde ṣalmış iki sāḥirdür
Diyār-ı Rūm’a Çīn’den geldi ḫaṭṭuñ bir müsāfirdür
Olupdur ẕāt-ı Ḥaḳḳ’a Ka‘be ḥaḳḳı ṣūretüñ maẓhar
Bu ma‘nā ehl-i bāṭın içre çoḳ gün gibi ẓāhirdür
Ṣaçuñ örter cemālüñ ġayret-i īmān ḳanı cānā
İder göz göre dīni setr ol gör nice kāfirdür
İki bir dimeyüp cānā dökerler ḳanumı her-dem
Meger kim tīrüñ ile ittifāḳı zaḫmumuñ birdür
Muḫayyel şi‘rini cānā belüñle vaṣf-ı zülfüñde
Görenler didi ḥaḳ bu Fażlī ġāyet ince şā‘irdür

In English

1. Your tresses are two sorcerers who have spread a prayer rug on the water; the down on your cheek is a guest come from China to the land of Rum.

2. By the truth of the Kaaba, your form has become the place where the essence of God is manifest; this meaning is as clear as day among the people of the inner world.

3. O beloved, your hair covers your beauty; where is the zeal of faith? It covers faith before one's very eyes; see what an unbeliever it is.

4. O beloved, without a second thought (without saying "two" or "one") they shed my blood at every moment; it seems your arrow and my wound are of one accord.

5. O beloved, those who saw the imaginative poetry that describes your waist and your tress said: "Truly this Fazlî is a very subtle (thin) poet."

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a ghazal (gazel) of five couplets, written in the "mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün" pattern of the hezec family of aruz (quantitative metre). The redif (refrain) is the suffix "-dür/-dir" (is); Özkat counts this ghazal among those with a suffix redif. The rhyme is formed by the sound "-ir" in the words "sāḥir, müsāfir, ẓāhir, kāfir, bir, şā‘ir". The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet. The ghazal is the sixtieth in Özkat's edition and is found only in the Fazlî divan section (fol. 235b) 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 the first couplet the beloved's hair, falling to either side, is likened to two sorcerers who have spread a prayer rug on the water. Spreading a prayer rug on the water and standing on it is known in hagiographies as one of the miracles attributed to saints; Fazlî assigns this extraordinary act to sorcerers and likens the brightness of the face to water and the black hair to the prayer rug; this interpretation is our own. In the second line the down on the cheek is a guest come from China to the land of Rum. In divan poetry China is associated with musk and blackness, Rum with whiteness; the dark down appearing on the white face thus becomes a traveller from a distant land.

The second and third couplets are built with words taken from the language of religion. In the second the beloved's form is counted the place of manifestation of the essence of God; the contrast between "bāṭın" (inner, hidden) and "ẓāhir" (outer, manifest) says that this hidden meaning is as clear as day to the people of the heart. In the third couplet the hair is called an "unbeliever" because it covers the face; the Arabic meaning "to cover" of the word "küfr" (unbelief) is the basis of this comparison. The hair's covering the face is thought of as the covering of faith. Özkat cites this couplet among the examples of the idiom "göz göre" (before one's very eyes). In the fourth couplet a play on numbers is set up between the phrase "iki bir dimeyüp" (without saying two or one) and the words "ittifāḳ" (accord) and "bir" (one): the beloved's arrow and the lover's wound have become one.

The last couplet is one that Özkat cites among Fazlî's remarks on his own poetry. According to Özkat, the poet says that those who see the poems he wrote imagining the beloved's waist and hair at once understand what a subtle poet he is. In the couplet the word "ince" (thin, subtle) is tied both to the beloved's slender waist and to the poet's subtlety of thought; the convention in divan poetry that the waist is so thin as to be "non-existent" and exists only in the imagination is also connected with the word "muḫayyel" (imaginative, imagined).

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. 319-320, ghazal no. 60 (Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Hazine, fol. 235b); also p. 41 (his remarks on his own poetry), p. 68 (redifs), p. 92 (idioms) and pp. 119-120 (description of the manuscripts), https://katalog.marmara.edu.tr/veriler/yordambt/cokluortam/5E/T0051713.pdf.

Online sources