Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fe‘ilātün Fe‘ilātün Fe‘ilātün Fe‘ilün

Kimse görmez ruḫuñuñ ayını şāhā yıl olur
Ṭali‘ümde ṭoġıcaḳ görmege yaş ḥā’il olur
N’ola mestāne ceres gibi fiġān eyler ise
Nūş iden cür‘a-i cām-ı lebüñi ḳandil olur
Ḳadd-i ḫam-geşte ile āh-ı derūna naẓar it
Ḫūblar tīr ü kemāna güzelüm mā’il olur
Her ḳaçan ruḫlaruña kākül-i müşgīnüñ iner
Ṣanuram Ka‘be’ye Cibrīl-i Emīn nāzil olur
Ol tabīb-i dil ü cān ḳabrüme gelse Fażlī
Derdümi söylemege her çemenüm bir dil olur

In English

1. My king, it is a year since anyone saw the moon of your face; in my fortune, as soon as (that moon) rises, my tears become a barrier to my seeing it.

2. Whoever drinks a draught from the cup of your lip becomes a lamp (becomes blind drunk); what wonder if, drunken, he cries out like a bell?

3. Look at my bent stature and at the sigh from within me, my beauty; the fair ones incline to arrow and bow.

4. Whenever your musk-scented forelock comes down on your cheeks, I think the faithful Gabriel is descending upon the Kaaba.

5. O Fazlî, if that physician of heart and soul came to my grave, every blade of grass upon me would become a tongue to tell my pain.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a ghazal (gazel) of five couplets, written in the "fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilün" pattern of the remel family of aruz (quantitative metre). The redif (refrain word) is the verb "olur" (becomes); Özkat counts this ghazal among those with a Turkish word redif. The rhyme is formed by the sound "-il" in the words "yıl, ḥā'il, ḳandil, mā'il, nāzil, dil". The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet. The ghazal is the eighty-sixth in Özkat's edition and is not found in the Hazine miscellany; it is found only in Pervâne Beg's anthology of response poems, Bağdat Köşkü 406 (fol. 197b). Özkat takes the text from Hasan Kaya's thesis. It is not known to whom or when it was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The first couplet is the opening couplet Özkat cites in his section on response poems. The beloved's face is likened to the moon, and the words "ay" (moon, month) and "yıl" (year), as two words denoting time, form a congruence of images (tenasüp); there is also a relation between "ṭoġmak" (to rise) and "ṭāli‘" (rising star, fortune); this is our own observation. As soon as the moon rises in the lover's fortune, his tears prevent him from seeing it. In the second couplet the phrase "ḳandil olmak" (to become a lamp) calls to mind the Turkish idiom "kandil olmak", meaning to be very drunk; a relation is also set up between the hanging lamp and the bell (ceres), which likewise hangs; this is our own interpretation. The lover who drinks from the beloved's lip grows drunk and cries out like a bell.

In the third couplet the lover's bent stature is likened to a bow and the sigh that comes from within him to an arrow; the inclination of the fair ones to arrow and bow is his reason for asking to be looked at. The fourth couplet draws a daring comparison: the beloved's face is likened to the Kaaba, and the black forelock coming down on his cheeks to Gabriel descending upon the Kaaba. In the last couplet the beloved is "the physician of heart and soul"; every blade of grass growing on the lover's grave turns into a tongue to tell his pain. That the grass growing on a grave should tell the state of the dead is tied to the idea, in divan poetry, of a love that continues after death.

Response Poem

According to Özkat, this ghazal was written as a nazire (response poem) to Zâtî's ghazal whose opening couplet is "Dimiş ol meh şeb-i vaṣla nice müsta‘cil olur / Bir demi rūz-ı firāḳuñ nice yüz biñ yıl olur"; this ghazal of Zâtî was answered with four ghazals (by Hayâlî, Muhibbî, Fazlî and Vechî). Muhibbî, as Özkat points out, is the pen name of Sultan Süleyman the Lawgiver. Zâtî (1471-1546) was Fazlî's teacher: according to Özkat, Zâtî had the greatest influence on Fazlî's literary development and on his entry into official life; Fazlî was one of the regulars of Zâtî's shop in the courtyard of the Bayezid Mosque, where the young poets of the age gathered. Fazlî keeps his teacher's metre, the redif "olur" and the rhyme "-il"; he uses the rhyme word "yıl" (year) of Zâtî's opening couplet unchanged in his own opening couplet; 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. 335, ghazal no. 86 (Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Bağdat Köşkü 406, fol. 197b); also p. 69 (redifs), p. 73 (his relation to Zâtî), pp. 97 and 99 (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. 209-211 (as cited by Özkat). katalog.marmara.edu.tr