Kara Fazlî, Ghazal 92: An Eyebrow Like a Tughra

Kara Fazlî's ghazal with the redif "yazmışlar": a cheek written on a rose petal, an eyebrow like a tughra on a patent, teeth strung as verse and hair written in an anthology.

Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Senüñ resm-i ruḫuñ berg-i gül-i ḫandāna yazmışlar
Benüm dāġ-ı siyāhum lāle-i nu‘māna yazmışlar

Siyeh ḫālüñ derūn-ı dīde-i giryāna ‘aks olmış
Ḳaşuñ şeklin berāt-ı şāh-ı ‘ālī-şāna yazmışlar

İki cānibde taṣvīr eylemişler zülf-i müşgīnüñ
Çözüp ol kākül-i zībālaruñ gerdāna yazmışlar

Berāt-ı zer-nişān üstinde bir tuġrā-yı ġarrādur
Ol ebrū-yı siyeh kim çihre-i cānāna yazmışlar

Dişüñ medḥini silk-i naẓm[a] düz[di] Fażlī-i bī-dil
Ṣaçuñ evṣāfını mecmū‘a-i yārāna yazmışlar

In English

1. They have written (drawn) the image of your cheek on the petal of the laughing rose; they have written my black brand-wound on the anemone (the tulip of Nu‘mân).

2. Your black mole is reflected in the depths of the weeping eye; they have written the shape of your eyebrow (as a tughra) on the patent of the king of lofty glory.

3. They have painted your musky tress on both sides (of your face); loosening those graceful forelocks, they have written them on your neck.

4. That black eyebrow they have written on the beloved's face is a brilliant tughra on top of a patent inlaid with gold.

5. Heartless Fazlî strung the praise of your teeth on the thread of verse; the qualities of your hair they have written in the anthology of the friends.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a ghazal (gazel) of five 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 "yazmışlar" (they have written) and takes the form "-a yazmışlar" (they have written on) with the dative 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 "ḫandān, nu‘mān, ‘ālī-şān, gerdān, cānān, yārān". The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet in the form "Fażlī-i bī-dil" (heartless Fazlî). The ghazal is the ninety-second 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. 364 (fol. 63a). The suffixes in square brackets in the last couplet are Özkat's additions. It is not known to whom or when it was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

All the couplets of the ghazal are built on images of writing and painting: the features of the beloved's beauty have been "written" on a rose petal, a patent, a neck and an anthology, as if they had come from the hand of a painter or a scribe. In the first couplet the beloved's cheek is written on a rose petal, and the lover's black wound on the anemone called lâle-i Nu‘mân; the black spot at the centre of the anemone is likened to the lover's brand. In the second couplet the beloved's black mole, reflected in the weeping eye, becomes its pupil; his eyebrow is the tughra, the sultan's monogram drawn at the head of an imperial patent (berat). The fourth couplet extends the same image: the black eyebrow is a brilliant tughra on top of a patent inlaid with gold.

In the last couplet the phrase "silk-i naẓm" means both a string of pearls and a line of verse; joined with the likening of teeth to pearls, it forms a double entendre (tevriye). The word "mecmū‘a", besides meaning an anthology of poems, also carries the sense of "gathered together"; the writing of the qualities of the hair, thought of in divan poetry as dishevelled (perişan), in an "anthology" rests on this opposition; this is our own observation. The density of words from the world of the scribe in the ghazal, such as patent, tughra, copy and anthology, recalls the profession of Fazlî, who, as Özkat states, spent more than thirty years of his life as divan secretary in the service of the princes of Süleyman the Lawgiver; this connection is our own interpretation.

Response Poem

According to Özkat, the heading of the ghazal in the miscellany bears the words "Naẓīre-i Fażlī" (Fazlî's response poem), but it is not stated to whose ghazal the response was made, and no poem with the same redif and metre precedes it in the manuscript. Özkat thinks that in metre, rhyme and redif the ghazal may be a nazire to Fuzûlî's ghazal whose opening couplet is "Ezel kātibleri ‘uşşāḳ baḫtın ḳare yazmışlar / Bu mażmūn ile ḫaṭṭ ol ṣafḥa-i ruḫsāre yazmışlar". Fuzûlî's ghazal too has an image of writing, the scribes of pre-eternity writing the fortune of lovers black. The two ghazals meet in metre and redif; but in Fuzûlî's opening couplet the rhyme is formed with "-āre" (ḳare, ruḫsāre), and in Fazlî's with the sound "-āna". This difference is our own observation and may explain why Özkat gives the relation only as a possibility.

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. 339-340, ghazal no. 92 (Yapı Kredi Sermet Çifter Research Library 364, fol. 63a); also p. 36 (his post as divan secretary), p. 69 (redifs), p. 99 (response poems) and p. 121 (description of the manuscripts), https://katalog.marmara.edu.tr/veriler/yordambt/cokluortam/5E/T0051713.pdf.
Fuzûlî Dîvânı, ed. K. Akyüz, S. Beken, S. Yüksel, M. Cumbur, Istanbul 1958, p. 192 (as cited by Özkat).

Online sources