Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Bülenddür ne tereddüd merātib-i şu‘arā
Velī derūnumı yaḳdı denā’at-i şürekā
Bir iki lafẓ-ı rekīk u me‘āni-yi terzīḳ
Derüp çatup müteşā‘ir geçer nice cühelā
Anuñ ki şā‘ir ola nāmı eks̱er-i ‘ālem
Görür ḳamusını hep bir temīz yoḳ aṣlā
Eger ki manṣıb-ı ‘ālīde ola bir nādān
Kelāmı herze vü hezyān olursa da farażā
Odur zemānede Ḥassān idüp aña taḥsīn
Olur ḥasen sözi ḥüsn-i ḳabūl ile aṣġā
V’eger ki pāye-i ednāda olsa bir kāmil
Olup kelāmda Seḥbān-ı Vā’il’e hem-tā
Çü jāj-ı Bāḳıl olur her kelāmı bī-raġbet
Kimesne gūşına almaz dür olsa da mes̱elā
Naẓar çü ḳāle degül ḳā’ile olur ne ‘aceb
Ḫurūş idüp cühelā ger ḫamūş ola büleġā
Çü şā‘ir ü müteşā‘ir olınmaya teşḫīṣ
Ne cān ile uzada güft ü gūya dil fuṣaḥā
‘Avāmdur didügüñ ehl-i fażla eyleme ṭa‘n
Ṭarīḳ-i Ḥaḳ’dan olar ola münḥarif ḥāşā
Saña şerīḳ olalı vü seni de fehm eyler
Cihānda çoḳ durur el-ḥamd Fażliyā fużalā

In English

1. The ranks of poets are high, there is no doubt of that; but the baseness of my fellows who pass for poets has burned my heart.

2. Many an ignorant man passes for a poet by scraping together one or two vulgar words and worthless meanings.

3. Most of the world sees everyone who bears the name of poet as all the same; it distinguishes none of them.

4. Suppose an ignorant man is in a high office, and his speech is nonsense and drivel;

5. (people) count him the Hassan of the age and praise him; his word is accepted as fine and listened to. (Hassan ibn Thabit is known as the poet of the Prophet.)

6. And if a man of perfection stands on the lowest rung, even if in speech he is equal to Sahban son of Wail,

7. every word of his finds no favour, like the idle talk of Bakil; though it be a pearl, no one lends it an ear. (Sahban and Bakil are two Arabs proverbial, the one for eloquence, the other for inarticulacy.)

8. Since men look not at what is said but at who says it, is it any wonder if the eloquent fall silent and the ignorant shout?

9. As long as the poet and the one who passes for a poet are not told apart, with what heart should the eloquent wag their tongues in speech?

10. Do not reproach the men of merit you call "common"; God forbid that they should have strayed from the path of truth.

11. O Fazlî, praise be to God, there are many men of merit in the world who are your fellows (who follow your path) and who understand you too.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a ghazal (gazel) of eleven couplets, written in the "mefā‘ilün fe‘ilātün mefā‘ilün fe‘ilün" pattern of the müctes family of aruz (quantitative metre). It has no redif (refrain word); the rhyme is formed by the long "-ā" sound in the words "şu‘arā, şürekā, cühelā, aṣlā, farażā, aṣġā, hem-tā, mes̱elā, büleġā, fuṣaḥā, ḥāşā, fużalā". The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet in the form "Fażliyā". According to Özkat, only one of the 124 ghazals that have come down complete has eleven couplets, and this is Fazlî's longest ghazal. The text is found only in the Fazlî divan section (fol. 218a) of the miscellany in the Hazine collection of the Topkapı Palace Museum Library; it is the ninth ghazal in Özkat's edition.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The subject of the ghazal is poetry and poets rather than love. Özkat says that Fazlî's ghazals giving judgements on poetry and poets are not few, and cites the second couplet of this ghazal as an example. The poet complains of an injustice in the world of poetry: ignorant men who pass for poets by "scraping together" one or two vulgar words and worthless meanings are praised because they hold high office, while the word of the accomplished poet left on a lower rung is not heard, though it be a pearl. Couplets four to seven set up this comparison with a conditional sentence: two sections of two couplets each, beginning with "eger ki ... ola" (suppose ... is), set the ignorant man in office beside the accomplished man without office.

In the fifth, sixth and seventh couplets three names from Arabic literature are mentioned. Hassan is known as the poet of the Prophet and is used for the praise given to the ignorant man; his name standing beside "ḥasen" (fine) and "ḥüsn-i ḳabūl" (favourable acceptance) forms a figure of common derivation (iştikak). Sahban and Bakil, the one a symbol of eloquence and the other of inarticulacy, form a pair of contrasts: the word of a poet as eloquent as Sahban is counted as worthless as Bakil's idle talk. The eighth couplet describes an order that reverses the familiar saying which advises looking at what is said rather than at who says it: everyone looks not at the "ḳāl" (word) but at the "ḳā'il" (speaker). There is also a pun (cinas) resting on likeness of sound between "ḳāl" and "ḳā'il" and between "ḫurūş" (shouting) and "ḫamūş" (silent).

Özkat identifies several idioms in this ghazal: "içi yanmak" (one's heart to burn) in the first couplet, "derme çatma (derip çatmak)" (scraping together) in the second, and "dil uzatmak" (to wag one's tongue) in the ninth. "Gūşına almamak" (not to take into one's ear) in the seventh couplet is, according to Özkat, a counterpart of the idiom "kulak asmamak" (to pay no heed) formed with a Persian word; Fazlî uses some idioms in their Arabic and Persian equivalents. The last couplet forms a figure of common derivation between the pen name and "fużalā" (men of merit) and "ehl-i fażl" (people of merit) in the tenth couplet: Fazlî ends the ghazal with a consolation, saying that the people of merit understand him.

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. 289, ghazal no. 9 (Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Hazine, fol. 218a); also pp. 62-63 (on the ghazals), p. 87 (idioms with Arabic and Persian equivalents), pp. 91-93 (idioms) and pp. 119-120 (description of the manuscripts), https://katalog.marmara.edu.tr/veriler/yordambt/cokluortam/5E/T0051713.pdf.

Online sources