Original Persian Text

Metre: Mefā‘ilün Fe‘ilātün Mefā‘ilün Fe‘ilün

ز روي لطف و كرم آن كريم والا قدر
اكر كه بنده نوازي كند كرم باشد
كمينه بندهٔ رويم اگر كه گاه گهي
تفقّدي بكند از كرم چه كم باشد

Reading in Latin script: 1. Zi-rūy-ı luṭf u kerem ān kerīm-i vālā-ḳadr / Eger ki bende-nüvāzī koned kerem bāşed
2. Kemīne bende-i rūyem eger ki gāh gehī / Tefaḳḳudī be-koned ez kerem çe kem bāşed

In English

1. If that generous one of lofty worth, out of grace and generosity, cherishes one of his servants, that too is generosity. (Özkat's translation: "Looking to the grace and generosity of that generous and worthy one, a servant's showing affection to the lowly is also generosity.")

2. I am the humblest servant of his face; if now and then he should out of generosity ask after me, what would his generosity lose. (Özkat's translation: "Even if I am one of his humble servants, how much of his generosity would it diminish for him to ask after my state and my welfare from time to time?")

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a Persian kıt'a (fragment) of two couplets (beyit), written in the "mefā‘ilün fe‘ilātün mefā‘ilün fe‘ilün" pattern of the müctes metre of aruz (quantitative metre). The second lines end with "kerem bāşed" and "kem bāşed": "bāşed" (it is) is the redif (refrain word), and "kerem" and "kem" form the rhyme. Özkat counts this kıt'a among those with a single-word redif. There is no pen name (mahlas). The kıt'a is found in the Fazlî section of the miscellany in the Hazine collection of the Topkapı Palace Museum Library (fol. 249b). To whom and when it was written is not known.

The edition gives the kıt'a in Arabic script, does not show its reading, and supplies the Turkish meanings of the couplets in the footnotes. The original text is Özkat's Arabic-script text. The reading in Latin script beneath it is ours. The word "eger" in the second line of the first couplet is written "اكر" in the edition, and "اگر" in the second couplet; in the original text we have left both spellings as in the edition. We have read the phrase "بندهٔ رويم" at the beginning of the second couplet as printed, "bende-i rūyem" (I am the servant of his face). Özkat's translation "one of his humble servants" suggests that the word was read "bende-i ūyem" (I am his servant); both readings fit the pattern of the metre.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

Özkat introduces this kıt'a as a poem in which the poet, who regards showing affection to the lowly as generosity, expresses that he expects such generosity from his beloved as well. The first couplet sets out a general rule: if a great and generous person shows favour to his servant, this is part of his generosity. The second couplet applies the rule to the poet's own situation: the poet counts himself the humblest servant of that person and says that asking after him now and then would take nothing away from that great generosity. Whether the person addressed in the kıt'a is a beloved or a patron from whom the poet expects favour cannot be determined with certainty from the text; Özkat adopts the reading of the beloved.

The real skill of the kıt'a lies in its rhyme. The words "kerem" (generosity) and "kem" (lacking, little) are bound together by the closeness of their sounds and set up a contrast in meaning: showing generosity takes nothing away from generosity. That this wordplay is a paronomasia (cinas) is our observation. The word "kerem" occurs three times in the kıt'a, and "kerīm" in the first line comes from the same root; this repetition gathers the whole meaning of the poem around the notion of generosity. The word "bende" (servant) is also repeated in the two couplets, and the phrase "bende-nüvāzī" (cherishing one's servant) conveys that a generous person shows himself most of all in the attention he pays to his servant.

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, p. 381, kıt'a no. 14 (Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Hazine, fol. 249b; meanings of the couplets in the footnotes); also pp. 64-65 (on the kıt'as), p. 69 (redif and rhyme) and pp. 110-111 (Persian poems), https://katalog.marmara.edu.tr/veriler/yordambt/cokluortam/5E/T0051713.pdf.

Online sources