Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Bahār eyyāmı ‘işret vaḳti ‘āşıḳlıḳ zemānıdur
Şarāb iç iy göñül mest ol ne ayaḳlıḳ zemānıdur
Ṭutup lāle piyāle ṭutdı ṣaḥrā gūşesin sende
Götür bāġa ayaḳ ‘ıyş it muvāfıḳlıḳ zemānıdur
Ne taḳvā vaḳtidür eyyāmı geçdi tevbenüñ ṣūfī
Baña gel pārsālıḳ añma fāsıḳlıḳ zemānıdur
Bir iki cām ile biñ ġuṣṣa derdine ‘ilāc eyle
Cihāna ‘arż-ı ḥikmet eyle ḥāẕıḳlıḳ zemānıdur

In English

1. The days of spring are the time of revelry and the time of loving; O heart, drink wine and be drunk; this is no time for sobriety. (The word "ayaḳlıḳ" has two senses, between "sobriety" and "ayak", meaning cup.)

2. The tulip, taking up its goblet, has held the corner of the plain; you too take a cup to the garden (or go to the garden on foot) and make merry; it is the time for being in tune.

3. O Sufi, this is no time for piety; the days of repentance are past; come to me, do not speak of abstinence, it is the time for sinning.

4. With a cup or two find a cure for the pain of a thousand sorrows; show the world your wisdom (your healing art), it is the time for skill.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The text we have consists of four 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 phrase "-lıḳ zemānıdur" (it is the time for); Özkat counts this ghazal among those whose redif is made up of a suffix, a Turkish word and a Persian word. The rhyme is formed by the sound "-ḳ" in the words "‘āşıḳ, ayaḳ, muvāfıḳ, fāsıḳ, ḥāẕıḳ". The ghazal is the ninety-fifth in Özkat's edition and is found only in the Fazlî divan section (fol. 236b) of the miscellany in the Hazine collection of the Topkapı Palace Museum Library. Özkat gives it under the heading "incomplete ghazals rhyming in the letter rā", among those whose last couplets are missing; for this reason the couplet bearing the pen name (mahlas) has not come down to us. It is not known to whom or when it was written.

In the ghazal section of the divan, Özkat gathers the ghazals whose beginning or end is missing because of lost pages into a separate group at the end of the letter in which they rhyme, and notes that these ghazals were not left unfinished by the poet but owe their state to missing pages in the miscellanies. According to him, among the 153 poems of the ghazal section there are 15 ghazals that could not be recovered in full because of lost or torn-out leaves.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal has the voice of the libertine (rind), praising spring and the drinking gathering and counselling that the worth of the moment be known. The word "zemānıdur" (it is the time) of the redif says in each couplet that the time for something has come: the time of loving, of being in tune, of sinning and of healing. The word "ayaḳlıḳ" in the first couplet has two senses: read as "ayıklık" it gives the meaning "this is no time for sobriety"; "ayak", moreover, also meant "cup" in old Turkish. In the second couplet the words "götür bāġa ayaḳ" can likewise mean both "take a cup to the garden" and "go to the garden on foot". These double meanings are our own observation.

In the second couplet the tulip, with its red bowl, is likened to a member of the gathering holding a goblet; the likening of the tulip to a cup is familiar in divan poetry. The tulip has taken its place in the corner of the plain and calls the lover to the garden. The third couplet treats the opposition between the ascetic and the libertine: "taḳvā" (piety) and "fāsıḳlıḳ" (sinfulness), "pārsālıḳ" (abstinence) and "tevbe" (repentance) are set against each other. In the last couplet wine is thought of as a medicine: the words "‘ilāc" (cure), "derd" (pain), "ḥikmet" and "ḥāẕıḳ" (a physician skilled in his art) form a congruence of images (tenasüp) from the field of medicine. Since the word "ḥikmet" means both wisdom and medicine, it is a double entendre (tevriye); 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, pp. 340-341, ghazal no. 95 (Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Hazine, fol. 236b); also p. 62 (incomplete ghazals), p. 69 (redifs) and pp. 119-120 (description of the manuscripts), https://katalog.marmara.edu.tr/veriler/yordambt/cokluortam/5E/T0051713.pdf.

Online sources