Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mef‘ūlü Fā‘ilātü Mefā‘īlü Fā‘ilün

Şīrīn ü Kūh-ken ki cihānda ḥikāyedür
İy ḫüsrev[üm] hemān ikimüzden kināyedür
Başum kesüp o devletüm eylerse pāy-māl
Devlet ḳonar başuma benüm ulu pāyedür
Parmaḳlaruñ durur aña iy māh şa‘şa‘a
Mihr-i sipihr-i luṭf ol ay gibi ayedür
Dil ṭıfl-ı nā-resīde-i sulṭān-ı ‘ışḳdur
Kim derd aña māder ü hem dāy-ı dāyedür
Şi‘rüñ hediyye olduġı yārāna Fażliyā
Şükr eyle Fażliyā saña Ḥaḳ’dan hidāyedür

In English

1. O my sovereign (my Khusraw), Shirin and the Mountain-Digger (Farhad), whose story is told throughout the world, are simply an allusion to the two of us.

2. If that fortune of mine (the beloved) cuts off my head and tramples it underfoot, the bird of fortune alights on my head; for me that is a lofty rank.

3. O moon, it is your fingers that give it radiance; the sun of the sky of grace is that moon-like palm of yours. (The couplet gives this meaning when read with the word "aya", the palm of the hand.)

4. The heart is the child, not yet of age, of the sultan of love; pain is to it both mother and nurse (the nurse of the nurse).

5. O Fazlî, that your poetry has become a gift to your friends, give thanks for it, O Fazlî; it is guidance to you from God.

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 the suffix "-dür" (is); Özkat counts this ghazal among those with a suffix redif. The rhyme is formed by the sound "-āye" in the words "ḥikāye, kināye, pāye, aye, dāye, hidāye". The ghazal is the eighty-first in Özkat's edition and is found only in the Fazlî divan section (fol. 240a) of the miscellany in the Hazine collection of the Topkapı Palace Museum Library. The suffix of the word "ḫüsrev[üm]" in the first couplet was added by Özkat for the sake of the metre. It is not known to whom or when it was written.

The most striking feature of the ghazal is its last couplet. According to Özkat, this is the only ghazal with a double pen name (mahlas) by Fazlî, who uses his pen name in the last couplet of his ghazals: the address "Fażliyā" occurs twice in the couplet, in each of its two lines.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The first couplet is an allusion to the story of Khusraw and Shirin, which passed from Persian into Turkish literature. In the story Farhad pierces a mountain in order to win Shirin, and for this reason he is called "Kūh-ken" (mountain-digger). Khusraw is the king who is Shirin's lover. The poet addresses the beloved as "ḫüsrevüm"; since the word means both "sovereign" and the Khusraw of the story, it is a double entendre (tevriye). To address the beloved as Khusraw and then say "Shirin and Farhad tell of the two of us" adds a fine irony to the couplet; this is our own observation. The second couplet is the one Özkat gives as an example of the idiom "başına devlet kuşu konmak" (for the bird of fortune to alight on one's head, to have great good luck). The lover counts it a stroke of fortune if the beloved cuts off his head and puts it underfoot; there is a relation of sound between "pāy-māl" (trampled underfoot) and "pāye" (rank), and the repetition of the word "devlet" (fortune) is the figure of repetition (tekrir).

The third couplet is obscure. The rhyme word "ayedür" appears to be formed by adding the suffix "-dür" to the Turkish word "aya", the palm of the hand; with this reading the couplet likens the beloved's palm to the sun and the fingers to the sun's rays. In the phrase "ay gibi aya" (a palm like the moon) there is a play of sound between "ay" (moon) and "aya" (palm); this reading is our own inference. In the fourth couplet the heart is the small child of the sultan of love; pain raises it like a mother and a nurse. The words "ṭıfl" (child), "nā-resīde" (not yet of age), "māder" (mother) and "dāye" (nurse, wet nurse) form a congruence of images (tenasüp). In the last couplet the poet counts it a favour from God that his poetry circulates among friends like a gift; the likeness of sound between the words "hediyye" (gift) and "hidāye" (guidance) is also noteworthy; this is our own observation.

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. 332, ghazal no. 81 (Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Hazine, fol. 240a); also p. 62 (double pen name), p. 68 (redifs), pp. 86 and 91 (idioms) and pp. 119-120 (description of the manuscripts), https://katalog.marmara.edu.tr/veriler/yordambt/cokluortam/5E/T0051713.pdf.

Online sources