Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mef‘ūlü Fā‘ilātü Mefā‘īlü Fā‘ilün

Bir oyun oynadı baña leclāc-ı rūzgār
Lu‘b ile aldı atumı ḳaldum piyāde zār
Gördüm ki māt ider beni ferzāne ol şehüñ
Sürdüm ruḫ atı pāyına fī’l-ḥāl bī-ḳarār
İy şehr-yār diñle benüm ser-güẕeştümi
Virmez gedā şikāyeti ẓāhir bu şāha ‘ār
Iṣṭabl-ı dehrde bir atum var ki ḥüsrevā
Rūz-ı veġāda düşmenüñ olsun aña süvār
Bir esbdür ki ḳuvvet-i ża‘f ile fī’l-mes̱el
Mūr-ı naḫīfe ursalar olmaya hīç bār
Şöyle ḳavī ża‘īf ü ża‘īf ü ḳavī durur
Bād esdüğince raḳṣ ider öñince çün ġubār
Şā‘ir ṭabī‘atında ṣan ince ḫayāldür
Ol esb bu niḥāfet ile lāġar u nizār
Ḳavs-i ḳuzaḥ olupdur anuñ vaṣfı gerçi kim
Ḳavs-i ḳuzaḥ degül ol olupdur hilāl-vār
Ḥiss itmege vücūdını key tīz-bīn gerek
Şöyle naḫīfdür ki disem yoḳdur aṣlı-vār
Olsam süvār kimse anı görmeyüp beni
Olmış ṣanur hevāya kerāmet ile süvār
Ġāyet tevāżu‘ ehli durur yüzi yirdedür
Herbir adımda secdeler eyler hezār-bār
Ṣırtında ṣan yaġırlarıdur tāze tāze gül
Her laḥẓa būy-ı mevt gelür andan āşikār
Revzenler oldı ḳaṣr-ı vücūdında her yaġır
Ḳılmaġa şāh-ı rūḥı ‘adem bāġına güẕār
Yā herbiri meger ki remed dīde dīdedür
Ḳanlar döker çü dīde-i ‘uşşāḳ-ı eşk-bār
Ḥayf arpaya ki żāyi‘ idüp ekl ide müdām
Ḳıymetde yidügi ‘alefe değmeyin ṭavar
Ġam çekme iy göñül eger atuñ olup ża‘īf
Ḳalduñsa pāy-der-gil ü dermān-de-figār
Iṣṭabl-ı şāhda ata yoḳ ḥadd ü ‘add ü ḥaṣr
Ḥāşā seni piyāde ḳoya luṭf-ı şehr-yār
Ḫān Muṣṭafā ki sümm-i semendine ser ḳoyup
Şehler ḳılur türāb-ı rehin tāc-ı iftiḫār
Binse semend-i devlete iḳbāl ü ‘izz ile
Şāhān atı ayaġına vārın ider nis̱ār
Na‘lin semend-i ḳadri atup çerḫa rūz-ı rezm
Buldı hilāl nām ile şimdi iştihār
Ḳılsa şikār ḳaṣdına ger pāydur rikāb
Cān virür olmaġa aña şīr-i felek şikār
Bir şeh-süvārdur ki binüp esb-i devlete
Ger kār-zār ḳılsa olur ḫaṣma kār zār
Çāpük-süvār-ı ‘arṣa-i iḳbāl odur bugün
Olsun hemīşe devlet ü baḫt ile pāy-dār
Bir pād-şāhdur ki anuñ mīr-āhurı
Bir şāhdur ki sāyisidür biñ Sifendiyār
Ḥaḳ salṭanat semendin idüp saña zīr-i zīn
Ḳıldı bu ‘arṣada seni bī-şübhe şeh-süvār
Meydān senüñdür iy şeh-i Cemşīd-menzilet
Sür esb-i devleti ne ġam olsa ‘adū hezār
Fażlī ḳuluñ piyāde ḳalupdur meded şehā
Atlandur ol faḳīri ḳoma pāy-māl ü ḫᵛār
Oldıḳca ḫink-i tevsen-i gerdūna dāyimā
İḳbāl ile süvār şeh-i āsmān-medār
Olsun öñüñce ġāşiye-dāruñ hezār şāh
Sen bin sa‘ādet atına iy şāh-ı kām-kār

In English

1. The chess master of time played a game on me; with one move he took my horse, and I was left a wretched pawn, on foot. (In the couplet "at" means both a riding horse and the knight in chess, and "piyāde" both a man on foot and a pawn.)

2. When I saw that the wise vizier of that king would checkmate me, I at once, restlessly, rubbed my face at his feet. (In chess "ferz" is the vizier piece and "ruḫ" the rook; "ruḫ" also means "face". The line can also be read in chess terms as "I moved rook and knight before him".)

3. O sovereign, hear what has befallen me; clearly a beggar's complaint brings no shame upon this king.

4. O padishah, in the stable of time I have such a horse that, on the day of battle, may your enemy ride it.

5. It is a horse such that, by the strength of its weakness, so to speak, if they loaded it on a puny ant it would be no burden at all.

6. Its weakness is so strong and its strength so weak that whenever the wind blows it dances before it like dust.

7. With this thinness that horse is so lean and scrawny that it is as if it were a fine fancy in a poet's mind.

8. Its description, indeed, has likened it to a rainbow; but it is no rainbow, it has become like a crescent. (Its spine is bent and thin as a crescent.)

9. To perceive its existence one needs very sharp eyes; it is so thin that I may well say it does not exist at all.

10. If I ride it, no one sees it, and they think I am riding the air by a miracle.

11. It is extremely humble, its face is on the ground; at every step it prostrates itself a thousand times. (At every step it stumbles and falls on its face.)

12. The saddle sores on its back are like fresh roses; every moment the smell of death comes plainly from them.

13. Every sore has become a window in the palace of its body, so that the king of its soul may pass out into the garden of non-existence.

14. Or perhaps each of them is an eye stricken with inflammation; they shed blood like the weeping eyes of lovers.

15. Pity the barley it ceaselessly eats and wastes; it is a beast not worth, in value, the fodder it eats.

16. O heart, do not grieve if, your horse being weak, you are left with your foot stuck in the mud, helpless and wounded.

17. In the king's stable the horses are beyond limit, number or count; surely the sovereign's kindness will not leave you on foot.

18. That Mustafa Han, at whose steed's hoof kings lay their heads, making the dust of his road their crown of pride.

19. If he mounts the steed of fortune with prosperity and glory, kings scatter all they have at his horse's feet.

20. On the day of battle the steed of his rank flung its horseshoe into the sky; that shoe has now become famous under the name of the crescent moon. (The crescent is the shoe flung into the sky by the prince's horse.)

21. If he set his foot in the stirrup intending to hunt, the lion of the sky, that is, the sign of Leo, would give its life to become his prey.

22. He is such a master rider that if he mounts the horse of fortune and goes to battle, the enemy's work turns to misery. ("Kār-zār" means battle; "kār zār" means wretched work.)

23. Today he is the nimble rider of the field of prosperity; may he ever stand firm with fortune and luck.

24. He is a padishah whose master of the horse is a king who employs a thousand Isfandiyars as grooms.

25. God has put the steed of sovereignty beneath your saddle and made you without doubt the master rider of this field.

26. O king of Jamshid's rank, the field is yours; drive on the horse of fortune, what matter if the enemies are a thousand.

27. O king, your servant Fazlî has been left on foot, help; give that poor man a horse, do not leave him trampled underfoot and despised.

28. As long as the king who turns the sky, that is, the sun, rides with prosperity the white steed of the heavens,

29. May a thousand kings walk before you bearing your saddle-cloth; O king whose wishes are fulfilled, mount the horse of felicity.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a kaside (qasida) of twenty-nine couplets (beyit). The metre is "mef‘ūlü fā‘ilātü mefā‘īlü fā‘ilün" of the muzari family; the rhyme is the sound "-ār": zār, bī-ḳarār, ‘ār, süvār, bār, ġubār and the same sound in the following couplets. As Mustafa Özkat observes, the name of the person praised appears in the 18th couplet and the poet's pen name (mahlas) in the 27th, and the kaside ends with a prayer of two couplets. This arrangement follows the classical plan of the kaside: the first seventeen couplets are a long introduction (nesib) describing the poet's feeble horse; the seventeenth couplet makes the transition to the prince's stable; from the eighteenth couplet on Şehzade Mustafa is praised; in the twenty-seventh the poet states his request; the last two couplets are a prayer.

Özkat publishes the kaside as the 25th kaside of the divan from a poetry miscellany in the Revan collection of the Topkapı Palace Museum Library (Revan 1966, fol. 147b). In this miscellany twenty-one kasides by Fazlî stand among the kasides of other poets. The heading in the manuscript is "Ḳaṣīde-i Fażlī berāy-ı Sulṭān Muṣṭafā".

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The kaside is a poem of request: the poet asks the prince for a horse. Özkat notes that Fazlî also asks Şehzade Mustafa for a horse in kaside 22, and that in the nesib of this kaside he describes his feeble horse in a manner recalling the narration of Şeyhî's Harnâme. The Harnâme is the mesnevi of the fifteenth-century poet Şeyhî that tells the story of a donkey in a mocking tone.

The first two couplets of the kaside are built like a game of chess. "Leclāc" is the name of a famous chess master in divan poetry, and here it stands for time, for fate. The words "lu‘b" (game, move), "at", "piyāde", "māt", "ferzāne", "ruḫ" and "şeh" bring together the pieces and terms of chess. "At" denotes both the mount the poet has lost and the knight in chess, "piyāde" both being left on foot and the pawn, "ruḫ" both the rook and the face; these double meanings form a congruence of images (tenasüp) built on double entendres (tevriye). Fate has taken the poet's horse with one move and left him on foot.

The horse is described from beginning to end by hyperbole. Özkat cites the fifth couplet, which says the horse is so weak that it would be no burden even if loaded on a puny ant, as an example of hyperbole (mübalağa). The horse is as thin as the poet's fancy, bent like a crescent rather than a rainbow, invisible when ridden, so that the poet is thought to be riding the air. In the eleventh couplet the horse's constant stumbling is described as "tevāżu‘" (humility) and "secde" (prostration); in the twelfth and thirteenth its saddle sores are likened first to fresh roses and then to windows through which the soul goes out into the garden of non-existence. These couplets apply, in a mocking manner, the images of love poetry, such as the rose, the eye and the lover's tears, to the sores of a horse.

The section of praise also turns around the image of the horse. The prince is a "şeh-süvār", a master rider who mounts "semend-i devlet", the steed of fortune; in the twentieth couplet it is said that the crescent moon in the sky is the shoe flung into the sky by the prince's horse on the day of battle. This is poetic aetiology (hüsn-i talil), the figure that finds a poetic cause for a natural phenomenon. In the twenty-second couplet there is a pun (cinas) between "kār-zār" (battle) and "kār zār" (wretched work). In the twenty-fourth couplet Isfandiyar, the hero of the Persian epics, is made so small that he becomes one of the grooms of the prince's master of the horse. In the twenty-seventh couplet the poet returns to the word "piyāde" of the first couplet and states his request openly: "Atlandur ol faḳīri" (give that poor man a horse).

Historical Context

The heading of the kaside and the words "Ḫān Muṣṭafā" in the eighteenth couplet show that it was presented to Şehzade Mustafa. Fazlî became Mustafa's divan secretary in Amasya after the death of Şehzade Mehmed in 1543 and remained in his service until 1553; the kaside belongs to these years, but the year in which it was written is unknown. Âşık Çelebi relates that Fazlî was left out in the cold by the death of Şehzade Mehmed and then became a secretary in Mustafa's divan. That Fazlî asks the prince for a horse in two separate kasides shows the court relationship that tied the livelihood of a divan secretary to the prince's favours. The poet's voicing of this need in a mocking tone, through a comic description of his own wretched horse, is an example of the individual manner that Âşık Çelebi and Latîfî praised in his poetry.

Bibliography

Online sources