Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Metre: Fā‘ilātün Fā‘ilātün Fā‘ilün
Maḫdūm-ı Ebü’l-Fażl-ı Kerīm
İy ki zātuñ faḫr-ı erbāb-ı kirām
Müşterī-tedbīr ü Keyvān-menzilet
Āfitāb-ı ās̱ār u Mirrīḥ-intiḳām
Rif‘atüñ bezminde ḫurşīd ü ḳamer
Biri zerrīn biri sīmīn iki cām
Nīkvān-ı dehrde sensin bugün
Nīk rāy u nīk rūy u nīk nām
Mihr-i rāyuñla münevver her diyār
Būy-ı ḫulḳuñla mu‘aṭṭar her meşām
Ṣaf-nişīnān-ı zevāyā-yı felek
Görmedi ẕātuñ gibi ‘ālī-maḳām
Ḳaṣr-ı ḳadrüñde ṭoḳuz ḳat āyine
Bu ṭoḳuz ḳat ḳubbe-i āyīne-fām
Ḥüsn ü ḫulḳuñ dil-nevāz şeyḫ ü şu‘āb
Dest-i cūduñ zer-feşān-ı ḫāṣṣ u ‘ām
Sen beyān itseñ me‘ānī-i bedī‘
Ġayrı manṭıḳ ehline değmez kelām
Olmasa ebyāt-ı ma‘mūruñ senüñ
Milket-i naẓm içre olmazdı niẓām
Bāde-i rengīn-i şi‘rüñ var-iken
Kim ki mey-nūş eyleye olsun ḥarām
Mevsim-i ‘adlüñde reste cümle kār
Devr-i iḥsānuñda ḥāṣıl her merām
Geldi Fażlī-i du‘ā-gū ḳapuña
Devlete eyler du‘ālar ṣubḥ u şām
Sāye ṣalaldan hümā-yı taḫtuñ
Pādişāh itdüñ gedāyı iy hümām
Dīde-i baḫtuñı bīdār eylesün
Dāyimā ol Ḥayy ü Bāḳī Lā-Yenām
Ḥaḳ Te‘ālā eylesün ‘ömrüñ mezīd
Devletüñe dāyimā virsün devām
In English
1. O son of the generous Ebü'l-Fazl, you whose very being is the pride of all who possess nobility.
2. In counsel you are Jupiter (Müşteri), in rank Saturn (Keyvan); your works shine like the sun, and your vengeance is like Mars (Mirrîh).
3. In the banquet of your eminence the sun and the moon are two cups, one of gold and one of silver.
4. Among the good men of the age today, you are the one of good judgement, good countenance and good name.
5. Every land is lit by the sun of your judgement, every nose perfumed by the fragrance of your character.
6. Those who sit in rows in the corners of the heavens (the dwellers of the sky) have never seen anyone of such high station as you.
7. In the palace of your worth there are nine tiers of mirrors; those mirrors are this mirror-coloured dome of the nine heavens.
8. Your beauty and your character charm the hearts of old and young; your generous hand scatters gold upon the elite and the common people alike. (The phrase "şeyḫ ü şu‘āb" in the text is obscure; the structure of the line and the matching "ḫāṣṣ u ‘ām" in the second line suggest that it stands for "şeyḫ ü şāb", that is, old and young. This is a conjecture.)
9. When you give voice to rare and novel meanings, the speech of other masters of words is worth nothing.
10. Were it not for your well-built couplets, there would be no order in the realm of verse.
11. While the coloured wine of your poetry is at hand, let any other wine be forbidden to whoever drinks it.
12. In the season of your justice every affair is freed from hardship; in the era of your beneficence every wish is fulfilled.
13. Fazlî, who prays for you, has come to your door; morning and evening he offers prayers for your fortune.
14. O magnanimous one, ever since the hümâ bird of your throne cast its shadow, you have made the beggar a king.
15. May the Ever-Living, the Everlasting, He who never sleeps, keep the eye of your fortune ever awake.
16. May God Most High lengthen your life and grant your fortune lasting permanence.
Literary and Historical Commentary
Structure of the Poem
The poem is a kıt'a (fragment) of sixteen couplets (beyit). The kıt'a is a short poem whose first couplet does not have rhyming lines; only the second lines of the couplets rhyme. In its length and subject this one is, in Özkat's words, a "kıt'a-i kebîre", a great kıt'a, written in the manner of a kaside (qasida). The metre is "fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün" of the remel family; the rhyme is built on the sound -ām (kirām, intiḳām, cām, nām … devām), and Özkat counts it among the kıt'as with rich rhyme. The pen name (mahlas) appears in the thirteenth couplet. Özkat notes that no miscellany contains a poem by Fazlî headed "kıt'a", and that in establishing the divan he gathered in a separate section twenty poems that could be classed as kıt'as by form and content. This kıt'a is the first in that section and is found only in the Fazlî divan section of the miscellany in the Hazine collection of the Topkapı Palace Museum Library (fol. 229b). In the manuscript the word "Ḥażret-i" stands at the head of the first couplet; Özkat left this word, which does not fit the metre, out of the text and noted that it may have been added out of respect for the person praised.
Meaning and Figures of Speech
The kıt'a is a eulogy from beginning to end. In the second couplet the person praised is likened to four heavenly bodies: Jupiter in counsel, Saturn in rank, the sun in his works, Mars in vengeance. In the third couplet the sun and the moon become two cups of gold and silver at his banquet, and in the seventh the nine heavens become the mirrors of his palace. This congruence of images (tenasüp) between the sky and the banquet carries the hyperbole of the praise. The tenth and eleventh couplets turn to the poetry of the person praised: by bringing together the words "ebyāt" (couplets, houses), "ma‘mūr" (prosperous, well-built) and "milket" (realm), poetry is likened to a country and the couplets to the houses of that country; this reading is our own interpretation. Özkat too says that the expressions in the tenth couplet show that the person praised was a poet. In the fourteenth couplet, with the image of the hümâ bird, which makes king whomever its shadow falls on, Fazlî says that he owes the change in his fortune to his patron.
Historical Context
The person praised in the kıt'a is the son of Ebü'l-Fazl; his name is not given. Özkat considers it likely that this Ebü'l-Fazl is Ebü'l-Fazl Çelebi, the son of the historian İdrîs-i Bitlisî (d. 1520), who also wrote poetry under the pen name "Fazlî" and died in 982 (1574). According to what Özkat relates from the biographical anthologies of poets (tezkire), Ebü'l-Fazl Çelebi served as a judge, became treasurer (defterdar) of Anatolia and then chief treasurer of Rumelia, held gatherings with the scholars and poets of the day at the house he had built in Tophane after his dismissal, and died on the road while going on pilgrimage. Who the praised son was and when the kıt'a was written are unknown.
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. 374-375, kıt'a no. 1 (Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Hazine, fol. 229b); also pp. 9-10 (Ebü'l-Fazl Çelebi), p. 64 (on the kıt'as) and p. 69 (rhyme), https://katalog.marmara.edu.tr/veriler/yordambt/cokluortam/5E/T0051713.pdf.
Online sources
