Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Kākülüñ vālāsını boynuñda ḳanum ṣandılar
Sāyeñi yanuñda cism-i nātüvānum ṣandılar
Başına cem‘ oldı ‘uḳāb-ı sipihrüñ zāġ-ı şeb
Aġzına almış hilāli üstüḫᵛānum ṣandılar
Bī-tekellüf ṣarılur boynuma zencīri ṣanup
Ġam diyārında görenler mihr-bānum ṣandılar
Bu fenā bāzārı içre āh-ı āteş-bārumı
Çarḫ-ı aṭlas gibi zer-beft sāye-bānum ṣandılar
Şol ḳadar şerḥ itdüm ol şīrīn-dehānuñ ġuṣṣasın
Ḳıṣṣa-i Ferhād’ı Fażlī dāstānum ṣandılar

In English

1. They took the fine silk veil of the forelock on your neck for my blood; they took your shadow at your side for my feeble body.

2. The crow of night gathered at the head of the eagle of the sky; they took the crescent it held in its beak for my bone.

3. (The chain) embraces my neck without ceremony; those who saw (it) in the land of grief took it for my loving beloved. (The words "zencīri ṣanup" in the first line can also be understood as "taken for a chain".)

4. In this market of transience they took my fire-scattering sigh for my gold-brocaded canopy, like the satin sky.

5. O Fazlî, I expounded the sorrow of that sweet-mouthed one (that Shirin-mouthed one) so much that they took the story of Farhad for my own epic.

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 the word "ṣandılar" (they took it for) and, together with the possessive suffix, takes the form "-um ṣandılar" (they took it for my); Özkat counts this ghazal among those whose redif is made up of a suffix and a Turkish word. The rhyme is formed by the sound "-ān" in the words "ḳan, nātüvān, üstüḫᵛān, mihr-bān, sāye-bān, dāstān". The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet. The ghazal is the eighty-fifth in Özkat's edition and is not found in the Hazine miscellany that contains Fazlî's divan; it is found only in Pervâne Beg's anthology of response poems, Bağdat Köşkü 406 in the Topkapı Palace Museum Library (fol. 187b). Özkat takes the text from the thesis Hasan Kaya prepared on this anthology. It is not known to whom or when it was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

In each couplet of the ghazal it is told how others mistakenly "took" one thing for another; this meaning of the redif builds the couplets on a series of fanciful aetiologies (hüsn-i ta‘lîl) and comparisons. In the first couplet the forelock falling on the beloved's neck is like a fine silk veil, and those who see it take it for the lover's blood. The Turkish expression "kanı boynuna" (his blood is on his neck), which denotes responsibility for someone's death, can be sensed behind this image; this is our own observation. In the same couplet the beloved's shadow, which never leaves his side, is taken for the body of the lover, grown as thin as a shadow. In the second couplet night is likened to a crow and the sky to an eagle; the crescent in the crow's beak is taken for the lover's thin, curved bone. The image of the lover reduced to bone by love is well known in divan poetry; the thin crescent joins this image.

In the third couplet the chain, the sign of madness, embraces the lover's neck, and those who see it take it for his loving beloved; the couplet calls up the picture of Majnun bound in chains. The construction of the words "zencīri ṣanup" in this couplet is not clear; in the rendering we have given both readings together. In the fourth couplet the lover's fire-scattering sigh is likened to a gold-brocaded canopy. The word "aṭlas" is both the name of the highest heaven, the felek-i atlas (the starless sphere), and the name of a silk fabric; it forms a congruence of images (tenasüp) with "zer-beft" (gold-brocaded) and "sāye-bān" (canopy), and the word "bāzār" (market) is tied to this world of fabrics as well. In the last couplet the phrase "şīrīn-dehān" (sweet-mouthed) is an allusion to Shirin: the lover has told of his beloved's sorrow so much that the story of Farhad's love for Shirin is taken for his own epic.

Response Poem

According to Özkat, this ghazal was written as a nazire (response poem) to Kemâl Paşa-zâde's ghazal whose opening couplet is "Ġamzeñüñ kim ḫançeri zaḫmın dehānum ṣandılar / Şu‘le yaḳdı āteş-i dilden zebānum ṣandılar"; this ghazal of Kemâl Paşa-zâde was answered with six ghazals (two by Zâtî, and one each by Hayâlî, Fazlî, Kandî and Sihrî). Özkat names Kemâl Paşa-zâde (1468-1534) among the poets to one of whose ghazals Fazlî wrote a response. Fazlî keeps the metre of the model, the redif "ṣandılar" and the rhyme "-ān". In Kemâl Paşa-zâde's opening couplet the lover's mouth is taken for the wound of the dagger of the glance, and his tongue for a flame burning from the fire of the heart; Fazlî carries the same pattern of mistaken taking over to the images of the forelock, the shadow, the crescent and the chain.

Fazlî's tahmis (a poem expanding each couplet of another's ghazal into a five-line stanza) on a ghazal of Necâtî carries the same redif "ṣandılar"; the last line of the first stanza, as quoted by Özkat, reads "Bu fenā gül-zārınuñ ‘ıyşını ‘ālem ṣandılar". The words "Bu fenā bāzārı içre" (in this market of transience) that Fazlî uses in the fourth couplet of this ghazal recall that line of Necâtî. This resemblance 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. 334, ghazal no. 85 (Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Bağdat Köşkü 406, fol. 187b); also p. 69 (redifs), p. 97 (the tahmis on Necâtî) and pp. 99-101 (response poems), https://katalog.marmara.edu.tr/veriler/yordambt/cokluortam/5E/T0051713.pdf.
  • Hasan Kaya, Pervâne Beg Nazire Mecmuası (165a-199b): Transkripsiyonlu, Edisyon Kritikli Metin, unpublished MA thesis, Marmara University Institute of Turkic Studies, Istanbul 2002, pp. 142-145 (as cited by Özkat). katalog.marmara.edu.tr