Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Pīşe-i ‘ışḳ içre Ferhād’uñ hemān bir adı var
Kār-ı ‘ışḳı baña ṣor her ṣan‘atuñ üstādı var
Ṭōp-ı āhumdan benüm ṭaşına gelmez hīç żarar
Ḳal‘a-i derd ü belānuñ ne ‘aceb bünyādı var
Ehl-i ḥāl olan çeker meyḫānelere erba‘īn
Pīr-i ‘ışḳuñ ṣūfiyā bu vech ile irşādı var
Ḫalḳ-ı ‘ālem hep senüñ dīvāneñ olmış serverā
Leyli’nüñ Mecnūn’ı Şīrīn’üñ Ferhād’ı var
Vādi-i tende nice ārām ide bu murġ-ı dil
Fażliyā pīr-i ecel gibi anuñ ṣayyādı var

In English

1. In the craft of love Farhad has only a name; ask me about the work of love, every craft has its master.

2. No harm at all comes to its stone from the cannon of my sighs; what a wondrous (firm) foundation the fortress of pain and calamity has.

3. O Sufi, those who are people of the inner state keep the forty-day retreat (erbain) in the taverns; the elder of love gives his guidance in this way.

4. O lord (O beloved), the people of the world have all become mad for you; (after all) Leyla has her Majnun, Shirin her Farhad.

5. O Fazlî, how should this bird of the heart find rest in the valley of the body? It has a hunter like the old man Death.

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 "var" (there is) and takes the form "-ı var" (has) 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 "-ād" in the words "ad, üstād, bünyād, irşād, Ferhād, ṣayyād". The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet in the form "Fażliyā". The ghazal is the ninetieth in Özkat's edition and is not found in the Hazine miscellany; it is found only in the "Mecmū‘a-i Eş‘ār" in the Yapı Kredi Sermet Çifter Research Library, no. 1082 (fol. 45b). It is not known to whom or when it was written.

Two lines of the ghazal also passed into the biographical anthologies of poets (tezkire). As Özkat points out, Kınalızâde Hasan Çelebi and Gelibolulu Mustafa Âlî give a couplet formed from two lines of this ghazal: "Leyli'nüñ Mecnūn'ı Şīrīn'üñ dilā Ferhād'ı var / Kār-ı ‘ışḳı baña ṣor her ṣan‘atuñ üstādı var". This couplet is made up of the second line of the fourth couplet and the second line of the first couplet of the ghazal. The line in the tezkires contains the word "dilā" (O heart); this word is absent from the miscellany text, and by the metre the line in the miscellany falls two syllables short. This last observation is our own; the reading of the tezkires completes the line to the remel pattern.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The first couplet describes love as a trade and a craft: the words "pīşe" (trade), "kār" (work), "ṣan‘at" (craft) and "üstād" (master) form a congruence of images (tenasüp). Farhad is a mountain-digger, that is, a stoneworker; the poet, who says that Farhad has only a name in love, claims that he himself is the true master of the work of love. The joining of these images of craft with Farhad's stonework is our own observation. The second couplet is built on images of siege: the lover's sigh is a cannon, and pain and calamity a fortress with a firm foundation; the words "ṭōp" (cannon), "ḳal‘a" (fortress), "ṭaş" (stone) and "bünyād" (foundation) form a congruence of images. The place of the cannon in the siege of fortresses is the ground of the image in the couplet.

The third couplet carries the terms of Sufism into the tavern: "erba‘īn" is the dervish's forty-day retreat; "pīr" and "irşād" are the sheikh who guides on the path of the order and his guidance. By saying that the people of the inner state keep this retreat in the taverns, the poet teases the Sufi. The fourth couplet alludes to the stories of Leyla and Majnun and of Shirin and Farhad: the whole world is mad for the beloved, just as every beauty has her madman. In the last couplet the heart is a bird that cannot find rest in the valley of the body; the one who will hunt it is Death, likened to an old hunter.

Response Poem

According to Özkat, although there is no note in the miscellany where the ghazal is found, it is clear from its metre, rhyme and redif that it is a nazire (response poem) to Fuzûlî's famous ghazal whose opening couplet is "Mende Mecnūn'dan füzūn ‘āşıḳlıḳ isti‘dādı var / ‘Āşıḳ-ı ṣādıḳ menem Mecnūn'un ancaḳ adı var". Özkat counts Fuzûlî among the poets who influenced Fazlî and states that Fazlî answered two of his ghazals. In Fuzûlî's opening couplet it is said that Majnun has only a name; Fazlî applies the same thought to Farhad and meets the model's "ancaḳ adı var" (has only a name) with his "hemān bir adı var". This comparison is our own observation.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Fuzûlî Dîvânı, ed. K. Akyüz, S. Beken, S. Yüksel, M. Cumbur, Istanbul 1958, p. 199 (as cited by Özkat).
  • Kınalızâde Hasan Çelebi, Tezkiretü'ş-Şu'arâ, p. 756; Gelibolulu Mustafa Âlî, Künhü'l-Ahbâr'ın Tezkire Kısmı, ed. Mustafa İsen, Ankara 1984, p. 320 (as cited by Özkat).

Academic studies

  • 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. 338, ghazal no. 90 (Yapı Kredi Sermet Çifter Research Library 1082, fol. 45b); also p. 69 (redifs), p. 98 (response poems) and p. 122 (description of the manuscripts), https://katalog.marmara.edu.tr/veriler/yordambt/cokluortam/5E/T0051713.pdf.

Online sources