Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Metre: Mef‘ūlü Fā‘ilātü Mefā‘īlü Fā‘ilün
Sāḳī ṣafā ile ki mey-i dil-güşā sürer
Nūş eyleyenler anı beġāyet ṣafā sürer
Sulṭān-ı dehr olan ḳurı ġavġā çeker hemīn
Ẕevḳini milk-i ‘ālemüñ iy dil gedā sürer
Öykündi gün yüzüñe diyü māhı şehrde
Teşhīr idüp sipihr yüzine ḳara sürer
İltür işini başa virür aña devlet el
Her kim ki pāyuña yüzini dāyimā sürer
Fażlī gedā-yı kūyuñ olup ḫāke yüz sürer
Ṣanma bu devleti daḫı bir pādişā sürer
In English
1. When the cupbearer, with delight, passes round (sürer) the heart-opening wine, those who drink it enjoy (sürer) great delight.
2. O heart, the one who is sultan of the world bears only empty strife; it is the beggar who enjoys (sürer) the pleasure of the realm of the world.
3. Because the moon imitated your sun-like face in the city, the sky exposes it to shame and smears (sürer) black on its face.
4. Whoever always rubs (sürer) his face at your feet, fortune gives him its hand and brings his affairs to success.
5. Fazlî, having become a beggar of your quarter, rubs (sürer) his face in the dust; do not think that any padishah enjoys (sürer) such fortune.
Literary and Historical Commentary
Structure of the Poem
The poem is a ghazal (gazel) of five couplets, written in the "mef‘ūlü fā‘ilātü mefā‘īlü fā‘ilün" pattern of the muzâri family of aruz (quantitative metre). The redif (refrain word) is "sürer"; Özkat counts this ghazal among those with a Turkish single-word redif. The rhyme is formed by the sound "-ā/-a" in the words "dil-güşā, ṣafā, gedā, ḳara, dāyimā, pādişā". The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet. The ghazal is the seventy-fourth in Özkat's edition and is found only in the Fazlî divan section (fol. 238b) 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 real play of the ghazal lies in the many meanings of the verb "sürmek" in the redif: wine is "passed round"; delight and pleasure are "enjoyed"; black is "smeared" on the moon's face; the lover "rubs" his face at the beloved's feet and in the dust; fortune is "enjoyed". The verb's shifting to a different sense in each couplet turns the redif into a play on words; this observation is our own. In the first couplet the word "ṣafā" (delight) is repeated in both lines. The second couplet compares worldly sovereignty with dervish poverty: while the sultan of the world busies himself with empty quarrels, it is the beggar who enjoys the pleasure of the world; the contrast between "sulṭān" and "gedā" (beggar) carries the couplet.
The third couplet appears in three places in Özkat's study. Özkat cites it among the examples of the figure of hüsn-i ta'lil (poetic aetiology): the spots on the moon are explained by the sky's smearing black on its face because the moon imitated the beloved's sun-like face. Özkat also counts the same couplet among the examples of the idioms "kara çalmak (kara sürmek)" (to smear black, to disgrace) and "yüzü kara" (black-faced, disgraced). This image is used in almost the same form in the third couplet of ghazal seventy-two. The fourth couplet is among Özkat's examples of the idiom "el vermek" (to give a hand, to favour): fortune gives its hand to whoever rubs his face at the beloved's feet. In the last couplet this thought is tied to the poet himself: Fazlî, who has become a beggar in the beloved's quarter and rubs his face in the dust, enjoys a fortune no padishah enjoys. The exchange of places between beggar and padishah re-creates at the end of the ghazal the contrast of the second couplet.
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. 327-328, ghazal no. 74 (Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Hazine, fol. 238b); also p. 69 (redifs), p. 84 (figures of speech), pp. 92-94 (idioms) and pp. 119-120 (description of the manuscripts), https://katalog.marmara.edu.tr/veriler/yordambt/cokluortam/5E/T0051713.pdf.
Online sources
