Kara Fazlî, Kıt'a 16: Water of Union, Fire of Parting

Kıt‘a (fragment) 16 — Hey ne müşkil ki ‘āşıḳ-ı miskīn

Amasya05 Editorial Board • Editor: Mevlüt Erdem Öztürk • 01 October 2026 • Updated: 07 October 2026 • 3 min reading

Kara Fazlî's kıt'a describing in a single sentence the lover who does not know where the beloved dwells, cannot reach the water of union and burns.

Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fe‘ilātün Mefā‘ilün Fe‘ilün

Hey ne müşkil ki ‘āşıḳ-ı miskīn
Bilmeye dilberüñ mekānını

Āb vaṣlıyla ḳılmaya teskīn
Yaḳa nār-ı firāḳ cānını

In English

1. How hard it is that the wretched lover should not know where the beloved dwells,

2. that he should not cool his heart with the water of union, and that the fire of separation should burn his soul.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a kıt'a (fragment) of two couplets (beyit). Its rhyme scheme differs from that of most kıt'as in the divan: the first and third lines ("miskīn", "teskīn") and the second and fourth lines ("mekānını", "cānını") rhyme with each other; this observation is our own. Özkat counts this kıt'a among those whose redif (refrain) is a suffix; the redif in the second lines is the suffix "-ını". The metre is "fe‘ilātün mefā‘ilün fe‘ilün" of the hafif family. There is no pen name (mahlas). The kıt'a is found only in the Fazlî divan section of the miscellany in the Hazine collection of the Topkapı Palace Museum Library (fol. 250a). To whom and when it was written is unknown.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

Özkat states that the fifteenth and sixteenth kıt'as stress how unlucky lovers are when it comes to union. In this kıt'a the two couplets form a single sentence: the complaint that opens with the exclamation "Hey ne müşkil" (how hard it is) is completed by three verbs running to the end of the second couplet. The lover first does not know where the beloved is, then cannot reach the water of union, and finally burns in the fire of separation. In the second couplet there is a clear antithesis between "āb" (water) and "nār" (fire), and another between "vaṣl" (union) and "firāḳ" (separation). The idea that union would allay the pain of separation as water puts out fire binds the couplet into a single image.

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. 16 (Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Hazine, fol. 250a); also p. 65 (on the kıt'as) and p. 69 (redif), https://katalog.marmara.edu.tr/veriler/yordambt/cokluortam/5E/T0051713.pdf.

Online sources