Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Metre: Mefā‘īlün Mefā‘īlün Mefā‘īlün Mefā‘īlün
Çü nāy nālemi bezmüñde nāhīdā istimā‘ eyler
Girüp şevḳ ile çerḫa Mevlevī gibi semā‘ eyler
Ḫazān yapraġıdur ṣanma dönen gülşende bād ile
Ten-i zer dü nizārumdur hevāñ ile semā‘ eyler
Dönerken birbirinüñ üstine eflāk iy māhum
Girüp birbirine ḫūrşīd-i ḥüsnüñ-çün nizā‘ eyler
Ḳaçup benden ne dem [kim] gitse ol ārām-ı cān iy dil
Firār idüp ḳarārum ṣabr u ārāmum vedā‘ eyler
Ḳılıcuñ ḥaḳḳı Fażlī’nüñ başın ḳaṭ‘ eyleseñ ḳaṭ‘ā
Kesilmez tīġ-ı ‘ışḳuñdan cihāndan inḳıṭā‘ eyler
In English
1. O Venus, whoever listens to my ney-like lament in your gathering begins to whirl with longing and performs the semâ like a Mevlevi dervish. (The couplet can also be read as Venus herself listening and rising to the dance.)
2. Do not take for an autumn leaf the thing that turns with the wind in the rose garden; it is my yellowed, wasted body, performing the semâ in your air (in the longing for you).
3. O my moon, as the heavenly spheres turn one upon another, they fall upon one another and quarrel for the sake of the sun of your beauty.
4. O heart, whenever that repose of the soul (the beloved) flees from me and goes away, my composure takes flight, and my patience and my rest bid me farewell.
5. By the right of your sword, even if you cut off Fazlî's head, he will never be cut off from the sword of your love; he will only be cut off from the world.
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 word) is the verb "eyler" (does, performs); Özkat counts this ghazal among those with a Turkish word redif. The rhyme is formed by the sound "-ā‘" in the words "istimā‘, semā‘, nizā‘, vedā‘, inḳıṭā‘"; all the rhyme words are Arabic verbal nouns. The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet in the form "Fażlī'nüñ". The ghazal is the seventy-ninth in Özkat's edition and is found only in the Fazlî divan section (fol. 239b) of the miscellany in the Hazine collection of the Topkapı Palace Museum Library. The word "kim" in square brackets in the fourth couplet was added by Özkat for the sake of the metre. It is not known to whom or when it was written.
Meaning and Figures of Speech
The first two couplets rest on the image of the semâ. In the Mevlevi ceremony the semâ is performed by whirling to the accompaniment of the ney (reed flute); Fazlî likens his own lament to the ney and says that whoever hears it begins to whirl with longing. "Çerḫa girmek" means for something to begin to spin; since the word "çerḫ" also means the sky, the turning of the heavens is felt in the couplet as well. The word "nāhīdā" in the first line is an address to the planet Venus; since Venus is thought of in divan poetry as the musician of the heavens, it forms a congruence of images (tenasüp) with the words ney, gathering and semâ. In the second couplet a comparison is drawn between the autumn leaf turning in the wind and the lover's yellowed, wasted body, and this time it is the body that performs the semâ. The word "hevā" means both air, wind and passionate longing; the wind that turns the leaf and the longing that turns the body meet in this word. The text reads "zer dü nizār"; the meaning becomes clear with the reading "zerd ü nizār" (yellow and wasted); this is our own inference.
The third couplet uses the old conception of the heavens: the nested spheres turn one upon another. The poet explains this turning as the spheres falling upon one another and quarrelling for the sake of the sun of the beloved's beauty. Özkat cites this couplet among the examples of the idiom "birbirine girmek" (to fall upon one another, to be thrown into turmoil). In the fourth couplet, when the beloved, called "ārām-ı cān" (repose of the soul), goes away, the lover's "ārām" (rest) goes too; the likeness of sound between "firār" (flight) and "ḳarār" (composure) and the repetition of the word "ārām" give the couplet its cadence. In the last couplet "ḳaṭ‘" (cutting), "ḳaṭ‘ā" (never, decisively) and "inḳıṭā‘" (being cut off) come from the same root, and the Turkish verb "kesilmez" (is not cut off) is added to them; the couplet is thus built from beginning to end on the notion of cutting. Even if the beloved's sword cuts off his head, the lover is not cut off from the sword of love; he is only cut off from the world.
This ghazal and ghazal eighty, which follows it immediately in Özkat's edition, are written in the same metre, with the same redif and the same rhyme; the words "istimā‘", "semā‘", "vedā‘" and "inḳıṭā‘" are used as rhymes in both, and the Mevlevi semâ is named in both. Both stand on the same leaf of the miscellany. This closeness is our own observation; the source does not state whether the two ghazals are response poems to each other or were written separately on the same ground.
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. 330-331, ghazal no. 79 (Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Hazine, fol. 239b); also 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
