Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fe‘ilātün Fe‘ilātün Fe‘ilātün Fe‘ilün

‘Āşıḳa nālelerüñ yirini eflāk idegör
Zührenüñ ġayret ile zehresini çāk idegör
Gün gibi ḳadr ile başuñ göge irerse daḫi
Yüzüñi her kişinüñ ayaġına ḫāk idegör
Kār iderse saña ger zehr-i ġamı dīni dūn
Sen ḳanā‘at meyini var aña tiryāk idegör
‘Işḳ bir şāhid imiş ḫalḳ-ı cihān ‘āşıḳdur
Gel beru ‘āşıḳ iseñ sen daḫı idrāk idegör
Dōstuñ ṭālib-i dīdārı iseñ iy ‘āşıḳ
Var yüri ḳalbüñi āyīne gibi pāk idegör
Ṣanma senden ṣaḳına bir oḳın iy şāh-ı cihān
Sen hemān kendüñi şāyeste-i fitrāk idegör
Çekme dünyā ġamını ‘ārif iseñ iy Fażlī
Mey-i yāḳūt ile var cānı feraḥ-nāk idegör

In English

1. (Say) to the lover: make the heavens the place of your laments (let your laments reach the skies); burst the gall of Venus with envy.

2. Even if your head reaches the sky in dignity like the sun, make your face dust beneath everyone's feet (be humble).

3. If the base world works the poison of grief upon you, at once make the wine of contentment its antidote.

4. Love, it seems, is a beauty, and the people of the world are its lovers; come here, if you are a lover, you too should grasp this.

5. O lover, if you seek the face of the Friend, go and make your heart pure like a mirror.

6. O shah of the world, do not think (the lover) would shield himself from a single arrow of yours; you need only make yourself worthy of the saddle-strap (fitrak). (The couplet can be read in two ways: if "ṣaḳınmak" is taken in its old sense of "to withhold", the words are addressed to the lover: "do not think the shah of the world will withhold a single arrow from you; just make yourself worthy of his saddle-strap.")

7. O Fazlî, if you are a knower (‘ârif), do not suffer the grief of the world; go and gladden your soul with ruby-coloured wine.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a ghazal (gazel) of seven couplets, written in the "fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilün" pattern of the remel family of aruz (quantitative metre). The redif (refrain word) is "idegör" (do, make); Özkat counts this ghazal among those with a Turkish single-word redif. The rhyme is formed by the sound "-āk" in the words "eflāk, çāk, ḫāk, tiryāk, idrāk, pāk, fitrāk, feraḥ-nāk". The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet. The ghazal is the sixty-first 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

Through the imperative of its redif the ghazal has the air of counsel from beginning to end, and it moves between love and mysticism. In the first couplet the lover is told to make his laments reach the heavens and to burst the gall of Venus. Venus (Zühre) is known in divan poetry as the musician of the sky; the lover's cry must be strong enough to make her envious. There is a likeness of sound between "Zühre" (Venus) and "zehre" (gall). In the second couplet even one whose head has reached the sky like the sun is counselled to make his face dust beneath everyone's feet; the contrast between reaching the sky and becoming dust expresses humility. Özkat gives this couplet as an example of the idiom "başı göğe ermek" (to have one's head reach the sky, to be overjoyed or exalted).

The third couplet draws on the language of medicine: if the world works the poison of grief, the wine of contentment becomes its tiryak, that is, its antidote. The fourth and fifth couplets turn to a mystical manner of speaking: love is a beauty and all the people of the world are in love with it; whoever wishes to see the face of the Friend must make his heart pure like a mirror. Likening the heart to a mirror and the need to polish it is the familiar image of the purification of the heart in Sufism. The meaning of the sixth couplet is not clear; "fitrāk" is the saddle-strap on which the hunter ties his game, and the lover is thought of as prey to be struck by the beloved's arrow and tied to his saddle. In the last couplet the knower is counselled not to suffer the grief of the world and to gladden his soul with ruby-coloured wine; thus the ghazal ends with a libertine's call.

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. 320, ghazal no. 61 (Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Hazine, fol. 235b); also p. 43 (idioms), p. 69 (redifs), p. 91 (idioms) and pp. 119-120 (description of the manuscripts), https://katalog.marmara.edu.tr/veriler/yordambt/cokluortam/5E/T0051713.pdf.

Online sources