Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mefā‘īlün Mefā‘īlün Mefā‘īlün Mefā‘īlün

Cihānuñ şāhıyam bir pādişāh-ı kām-rānum var
Ḳulı olmaġ ile ‘ālemde ‘izz-i cāvidānum var
Ġamuñ deyrinde bir ḳalıp durur bī-cān benüm cismüm
Ceres gibi cihānda deprenür ancaḳ zebānum var
Ḳulı olmış durur cümle cihān bir ben degül ancaḳ
Melāḥat taḫt-gāhı üzre bir şāh-ı cihānum var
Büküldi ḳāmetüm ġamdan aġardı mūy-ı jülīdem
Yigitlükde beni pīr eyledi bir nev-cüvānum var
Feżā-yı lā-mekān şeh-bāzıyam zāhid beni ṣanma
Bu cismānī serāda āşiyān ṭutmış mekānum var
Ten-i bī-cānum oldı pür-hevāyī gibi iy Fażlī
Ḥayātumdan es̱er ancaḳ benüm āh u fiġānum var

In English

1. I am the king of the world; I have a padishah who has attained his every wish; by being his slave I have everlasting honour in the world.

2. In the monastery of grief my body stands like a lifeless mould; in the world I have only a tongue that stirs like the clapper of a bell.

3. All the world has become his slave, not I alone; I have a king of the world upon the throne of beauty.

4. My stature is bent with grief, my tangled hair has turned white; I have a young one (a beloved) who has made me old in my youth.

5. O ascetic, do not take me (for an ordinary man); I am the falcon of the placeless realm; in this bodily palace I have (only) a place where I have made my nest.

6. O Fazlî, my lifeless body has become like a thing filled with air; of my life the only trace I have is my sighs and laments. (The word "pür-hevāyī" also calls to mind the rocket, the havai fişek, that rises into the air and bursts.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a ghazal (gazel) of six 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 word "var" (there is) and takes the form "-um var" (I have) with the possessive suffix; 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 "kām-rān, cāvidān, zebān, cihān, nev-cüvān, mekān, fiġān". The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet in the form "iy Fażlī". According to Özkat, the great majority of Fazlî's complete ghazals have five or seven couplets; only three of his ghazals have six. The ghazal is the eighty-seventh in Özkat's edition. It is not found in the Hazine miscellany; Özkat takes it from Fahir İz's anthology "Eski Türk Edebiyatında Nazım", and İz took it from the "Mecmū‘a-i Şu‘arā" in Istanbul University Library, Turkish Manuscripts 1724 (fol. 147b). It is not known to whom or when it was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal opens on an antithesis between being a slave and being a king: the lover counts himself king of the world because he is the slave of a mighty padishah. Since in the third couplet this padishah is called "melāḥat taḫt-gāhı üzre bir şāh" (a king upon the throne of beauty), he is the beloved; yet the phrase "pādişāh-ı kām-rān" (a padishah who has attained his wishes) in the first couplet may also point to a ruler. This second reading is our own interpretation. The second couplet is the most skilful in the ghazal: "deyr" is a monastery or church, and "ceres" a bell. The lover's body is a lifeless mould like the bell in the monastery; the only thing that moves is his tongue, like the "tongue" swinging inside the bell. Since the word "zebān" is used both for a person's tongue and for the clapper of a bell, it is a double entendre (tevriye); this is our own observation.

In the fourth couplet there is an antithesis between youth and old age: a young beloved has made the lover old in his youth; the words "yigitlük" (youth), "pīr" (old man) and "nev-cüvān" (young one) set up this opposition. In the fifth couplet a mystical manner of speech appears: the lover's soul is the falcon of "lā-mekān", the placeless realm, and the body is a palace in which it has made its nest for a time. The words "lā-mekān" (placeless) and "mekān" (place) form an antithesis. In the last couplet the word "pür-hevāyī" is obscure; it may describe a thing filled with air, and it also calls to mind the rocket (havai fişek) that rises into the air and bursts with a bang. The second reading is our own interpretation; of the lover's body nothing remains but sighs and laments.

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. 335-336, ghazal no. 87 (Istanbul University Library, Turkish Manuscripts 1724, fol. 147b); also p. 62 (numbers of couplets) and p. 69 (redifs), https://katalog.marmara.edu.tr/veriler/yordambt/cokluortam/5E/T0051713.pdf.
  • Fahir İz, Eski Türk Edebiyatında Nazım, vol. 1, Istanbul 1966, p. 281 (as cited by Özkat).

Online sources