Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Cānumı her-dem ki bir düşnāmdan cānān aña
Sīneden eyler ṣafā ile du‘ālar cān aña
Tīr-i dil-dūzuñ durur bir şāh-bāz-ı cān-şikār
Pādişāhum āhenīn minḳārdur peykān aña
Nāmeye esrārumı keşf eyleyem derdüm devāt
Ḳaldı cānā aġzına barmaḳ ḳoyup ḥayrān aña
‘Īd-i vaṣlumda dimiş ‘uşşāḳı ḳurbān eylerem
Bu söz içün olmaludur dōstlar ḳurbān aña
Yalıñuz iy Fażlī ṣanma sen seni ‘āşıḳ hemān
Mihr ü māh ile felekler oldı ser-gerdān aña

In English

1. Whenever the beloved addresses my soul with an insult, the soul prays for him from the heart with delight.

2. Your heart-piercing arrow is a falcon that hunts souls; my sovereign, the iron tip of the arrow is its iron beak.

3. O soul, as I was about to reveal my secrets in a letter, the inkstand put a finger (the pen) to its mouth and stood amazed at them. (The word "derdüm" in the first line can be read as "dedim" (I said) or understood as "derdim" (my pain).)

4. He said that on the feast of my union he would sacrifice the lovers; friends, one should sacrifice oneself for him for this word.

5. O Fazlî, do not think you alone are his lover; the sun and the moon and the heavens too circle dizzy because of him.

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 "aña" (to him); the rhyme is formed by the sound "-ān" in the words "cānān, cān, peykān, ḥayrān, ḳurbān, ser-gerdān". The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet. The ghazal is the eighth in Özkat's edition. The text rests on the Fazlî divan section (fol. 218a) of the miscellany in the Hazine collection of the Topkapı Palace Museum Library; it is also found in Pervâne Beg's anthology of response poems "Mecmû‘atü'n-Nezâ'ir", Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Bağdat Köşkü 406 (fol. 4b). Özkat cites this second copy from the text in İbrahim Sevinç's MA thesis of 2001 and shows the differences: in Sevinç's text the first line reads "Cānumı düşnām-ı lā‘linden ḳaçan cānān aña"; in the second couplet "müttekādur" is read instead of "minḳārdur", in the fourth "vuṣlatda" instead of "vaṣlumda", and in the last "ṣanmasun" instead of "ṣanma sen".

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The first couplet is built on a contrast: the beloved answers the lover's soul with "düşnām" (insult), while the soul prays for him. In the couplet even the beloved's insult counts for the lover as a compliment worth a prayer. The second couplet is woven from images of the hunt: the beloved's arrow is a "şāh-bāz" (falcon) that hunts souls, and the arrow's iron tip is the beak of this falcon; "ṣayd" (prey), "şāh-bāz", "minḳār" (beak) and "peykān" (arrowhead) form a congruence of images (tenasüp).

The third couplet is the ghazal's most striking conceit. The lover wishes to pour his secrets into a letter; but the inkstand, with the pen inside it, resembles someone who has put a finger to his mouth, and stands amazed before these secrets. A likeness is drawn between the pen in the inkstand's mouth and the finger put to the mouth in amazement. Özkat cites this couplet in two places as an example of the idiom "ağzına parmak koymak (parmağı ağzında kalmak)" (to put one's finger to one's mouth, to be left astonished); it is an example of Fazlî's use of idioms in their literal and figurative senses together. In the fourth couplet the word "ḳurbān" is used in two senses: the beloved has said he will sacrifice the lovers on the feast of union, and the friends should become a sacrifice for him for this word, that is, offer themselves. Özkat also illustrates the idiom "kurban olmak" (to be a sacrifice for someone) from this couplet. In the last couplet the sun, the moon and the heavens join the ranks of the beloved's lovers.

The Nazire Relation

According to Özkat, this ghazal was written as a nazire (response poem) to the ghazal by Atâ, whom Özkat identifies with a question mark as possibly Atâ of Skopje, whose opening couplet is "Ben miyem tenhā olan mihr ile ser-gerdān aña / Ḳuṭb-ı ‘ālem ṭaña ḳalmışdur olup ḥayrān aña". Atâ's ghazal was answered with 54 ghazals, Fazlî's included. The words "mihr ile ... ser-gerdān aña" in Fazlî's closing couplet echo the words of Atâ's opening couplet. Özkat counts the anthologies of response poems as the most important sources for identifying the poets by whom a poet was influenced, and notes that Pervâne Beg's anthology is of great importance because it contains the nazires Fazlî wrote to the poets of his time.

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. 288, ghazal no. 8 (Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Hazine, fol. 218a; Bağdat Köşkü 406, fol. 4b); also pp. 43, 90 and 93 (idioms), pp. 96 and 100 (nazires) and pp. 119-120 (description of the manuscripts), https://katalog.marmara.edu.tr/veriler/yordambt/cokluortam/5E/T0051713.pdf.
  • İbrahim Sevinç, Pervâne Beg Nazire Mecmuası (1a-29b): Transkripsiyonlu, Edisyon Kritikli Metin, unpublished MA thesis, Marmara University Institute of Turkic Studies, Istanbul 2001, p. 27 (as cited by Özkat). katalog.marmara.edu.tr