Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Geh beni öldürmege müjgānın ol şeh tīr ider
Gāh ḳanum dökmege her ġamzesin şemşīr ider
İtmedi zāyil cefā ḫaṭṭını göñlüñden başum
Müddet ile naḳşı sengī gerçi mā-taġyīr ider
Cūy-ı eşkinden çeküp eṭrāfına dil dāyire
Ol perī ruḫsārı ḫarbü’l-baḥr ile tesḫīr ider
Ṣūretüm bir zer varaḳdur k’anda naḳḳāş-ı belā
Kilk-i müjgānumla miḥnet naḳşını taṣvīr ider
Şi‘r-i şekker-bāruñ iy Fażlī ne ṭūṭīdür senüñ
Ḳanda ise bir şeker-leb vaṣfını taḳrīr ider

In English

1. That shah sometimes makes his eyelashes arrows to kill me, sometimes makes each glance a sword to shed my blood.

2. My head has not erased the writing of cruelty from his heart; yet water, in time, alters even the carving on stone. (The word "mā" in the second line has been read in its Arabic sense of "water".)

3. The heart draws a circle round him from the river of its tears and tries to subdue that fairy-faced one with "ḫarbü'l-baḥr". (What the phrase describes here is not clear.)

4. My (yellowed) face is a leaf of gold on which the painter of affliction depicts the image of suffering with the pen of my eyelash.

5. O Fazlî, what a parrot is your sugar-scattering poetry, that wherever it is it tells the praise of one with sugar lips.

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 "ider" (does, makes); Özkat counts this ghazal among those with a Turkish single-word redif. The rhyme is formed by the sound "-īr" in the words "tīr, şemşīr, taġyīr, tesḫīr, taṣvīr, taḳrīr". The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet. The ghazal is the sixty-eighth in Özkat's edition and is found only in the Fazlî divan section (fol. 237a) 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

The first couplet is built on the structure "geh... gāh" (sometimes... sometimes): the beloved makes his eyelashes arrows and his glance a sword. Likening the eyelash to an arrow and the look to a sword is among the best-known conventional images (mazmun) of divan poetry; Özkat counts this couplet among the examples of the idiom "kan dökmek" (to shed blood). The second couplet rests on the image of water wearing away stone over time: water alters even the carving on stone, yet the lover's head has not been able to erase the writing of cruelty in the beloved's heart of stone. It is hard to connect the word "başum" (my head) in the first line with the image of water in the second; the reading "yaşum" (my tears) would make the meaning clearer, but this is only a conjecture and the text has not been altered.

The third couplet seems to be drawn from the world of magic and talismans: the heart draws a circle round the beloved from the river of its tears and tries to subdue that fairy-faced one. The belief that fairies are subdued by drawing circles and reciting spells is evoked by the word "tesḫīr" (subduing); what the phrase "ḫarbü'l-baḥr" describes in this couplet, however, is not clear. In the fourth couplet the lover's yellowed face is likened to a leaf of gold, his eyelash to a pen, and the suffering he endures to an image worked on this leaf; the words "zer varaḳ" (gold leaf), "naḳḳāş" (painter), "kilk" (pen) and "taṣvīr" (depicting) form a congruence of images (tenasüp) from the arts of the book. The last couplet is one that Özkat cites among Fazlî's remarks on his own poetry. According to Özkat, the poet describes his poems as a "şeker-bâr" (sugar-scattering) "tûtî" (parrot). The parrot's connection with sugar and the praise of the sugar-lipped beloved create a congruence of images among the words "şekker-bār", "ṭūṭī" and "şeker-leb".

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. 324, ghazal no. 68 (Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Hazine, fol. 237a); also p. 41 (his remarks on his own poetry), p. 69 (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