Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fā‘ilātün Fā‘ilātün Fā‘ilātün Fā‘ilün

Cām-ı meyden mest olanlar kendüyi Cem ṣandılar
Cür‘asın tīġ-ı ecel zaḫmına merhem ṣandılar
Bezm-i ġamda sāḳi-i devrānı maḥrem ṣandılar
Bir dem iken devlet-i dünyāyı bir dem ṣandılar
Bu fenā gül-zārınuñ ‘ıyşını ‘ālem ṣandılar
Āb-ı ḥayvān ile ḳılmışlar ezel taḫmīrüñi
Eyledüñ la‘lüñ gibi cānum içinde yirüñi
Çünki naḳşuñda senüñ bulmadılar tezvīrüñi
Ehl-i diller göricek āyīnede taṣvīrüñi
Baġrına baṣmış yatur ‘Īsā’yı Meryem ṣandılar
Çözdi sünbüller benümçün ṭurre-i ṭarrārını
Dökdi bülbüller gözinden eşk-i gevher-bārını
Nāḫun ile pāre pāre ḳıldı gül ruḫsārını
Şol ḳadar zārīlıġ itdüm kim cihān gül-zārını
Ḫān-ḳāh-ı şīven ü eyvān-ı mātem ṣandılar
Dest-i ḳahr ile yaḳasın çekdiler çāk itdiler
Ḳurı yire başını bī-çārenüñ aḳıtdılar
Bād-ı ḫışm ile yüregin oynadup incitdiler
Yire sürdiler yüzin başum gibi acıtdılar
Bilmezem deryā-yı ‘Ummān’ı benüm nem ṣandılar
Bu fenā bezmin felek Fażlī’ye ḳılmışdur maḳām
Kāse-i sırdan içürdi ṭolular anda müdām
Şimdi ḳahr ile felekden almaġ-ıçün intiḳām
Ṣundılar bir cür‘a kim biñ yıl yaşar içen temām
Bu perī-rūlar Necātī bizi ādem ṣandılar

In English

1. Those drunk from the cup of wine thought themselves Cem (Jamshid); they thought its draught a salve for the wound of death's sword; in the gathering of grief they thought the cupbearer of time a confidant. They thought the empire of the world, which lasts a moment, a long season of pleasure; they thought the pleasure of this mortal rose garden a whole world.

2. In pre-eternity they kneaded your clay with the water of life; like your ruby lip you took your place within my soul; they found no falseness in your image. When the people of the heart saw your image in the mirror, they thought it Mary lying with Jesus pressed to her breast.

3. The hyacinths loosed their deceitful locks for me; the nightingales shed their pearl-scattering tears from their eyes; the rose tore its cheek to pieces with its nails. I moaned so much that they thought the rose garden of the world a lodge of lament and a hall of mourning.

4. With the hand of wrath they seized the poor wretch's collar and rent it; they spilled his head (his blood) on the dry earth; with the wind of anger they shook his heart and wounded it. They rubbed his face in the dirt and made it ache like my head; I do not know, did they take the Sea of Oman for the moisture of my tears?

5. The sky has given Fazlî a place in this mortal gathering; there it made him drink brimming cups from the bowl of the mystery without end; now, to take revenge on the sky, (these beauties) offered a draught such that whoever drinks it lives a full thousand years. O Necâtî, these fairy-faced ones took us for human beings.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a muhammes (five-line stanza poem) of five stanzas; in kind it is also a tahmis. A tahmis is the turning of another poet's ghazal into five-line stanzas by adding three lines before each of its couplets. Here the first three lines of each stanza are Fazlî's and the last two are Necâtî's. The redif (refrain word) of Necâtî's ghazal is "ṣandılar" (they thought) and its rhyme "-em" (dem, ‘ālem, Meryem, mātem, nem, ādem). The lines Fazlî adds rhyme in each stanza with the first line of Necâtî's couplet: "ṣandılar" in the first stanza, "-īrüñi" (taḫmīrüñi, yirüñi, tezvīrüñi, taṣvīrüñi) in the second, "-ārını" in the third, "-tdılar/-tdiler" in the fourth and "-ām" in the last. The metre is the "fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün" pattern of the remel family.

Özkat publishes the poem as the thirtieth musammat of the divan. The text rests on fol. 10a of the poetry miscellany no. 364 in the Yapı Kredi Sermet Çifter Research Library, copied in the seventeenth century. According to Özkat, Necâtî's ghazal has seven couplets, of which Fazlî has made a tahmis of five. Özkat compared Necâtî's couplets with the Necâtî Beg Divanı edited by Ali Nihat Tarlan and showed the differences in a footnote; for example, the Necâtî line in the fourth stanza reads in the divan "Yüzine kefler urup yire sürüp acıtdılar", and the word "gül-zārını" in the third stanza appears in the divan as "bünyādını". In the second line of the fourth stanza Özkat notes that the reading "ḳanını" (his blood) suits the sense better, but he preferred "başını" (his head) because of its harmony with the word "başum" in the same stanza.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

Necâtî's opening couplet speaks of the transience of worldly power: people have taken the world's sovereignty, which lasts a moment, for a long season, and the pleasure of the mortal rose garden for a whole world. The double use of the word "dem" in the line forms a pun (cinas); the first means "a moment", the second comes close to the sense of a long season of pleasure. Fazlî prepares this thought with images of wine and Cem: those drunk from the cup thought themselves Cem, the owner of the legendary cup, and took the draught of wine for a salve to the wound of death.

In the second stanza Necâtî's couplet carries a striking simile: the people of the heart who see the beloved's image in the mirror take the mirror for Mary with Jesus pressed to her breast. The lines Fazlî adds prepare the flawlessness of this image: its clay was kneaded with the water of life, and there is no falseness in its design. In the third stanza all of nature mourns with the lover: the hyacinths loose their hair, the nightingales weep, the rose tears its cheek with its nails. This is the carrying of the customs of mourning into the garden, and it prepares the ground for Necâtî's simile of the "hall of mourning". In Özkat's list of idioms, the idiom "yürek oynatması" (shaking of the heart) is illustrated from the fourth stanza.

Historical Context

Özkat says that Fazlî made his tahmises on ghazals by Necâtî, Zâtî and Âhî, and that his feeling close to these three poets in style and outlook may have played a part in his choice. This tahmis stands in the manuscript immediately after the tahmis Rahmî made on the same ghazal, under the heading "Naẓīre-i Fażlī" (Fazlî's response poem). From this heading Özkat concludes that Fazlî's tahmis was not written directly on Necâtî's ghazal but as a nazire (response poem) to tahmises written earlier. Because of missing leaves in the manuscript, it is not known whether other tahmises were made on the same ghazal.

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. 257-258, musammat no. 30 (Yapı Kredi Sermet Çifter Research Library 364, fol. 10a); also p. 58 (on the tahmises), p. 94 (idioms), p. 97 (Necâtî's influence) and p. 121 (description of the manuscripts), https://katalog.marmara.edu.tr/veriler/yordambt/cokluortam/5E/T0051713.pdf.
  • Ali Nihat Tarlan (ed.), Necâtî Beg Divanı, Istanbul: MEB, 1997, p. 191 (as compared by Özkat).

Online sources