Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Metre: Mefā‘īlün Mefā‘īlün Mefā‘īlün Mefā‘īlün
Varup dükkānına seyreyleyin ol çihre-i āli
Olup ol pīr olası nev-cüvānuñ cümle meyyāli
Tırāş olup hemān oldum olur baş açıḳ abdāli
İşin başa iletmiş ḫūbdur Berber Ḥasan Bālī
Güzel çoḳdur cinān-ı ḥüsn içinde gerçi mis̱l-i ḥūr
Cefā-pīşe ḳamusı ḥüsn-i bī-hem-tāsına maġrūr
Velīkin şīve fenninde yoġ anuñ gibi bir yüz yur
İşin başa iletmiş ḫūbdur Berber Ḥasan Bālī
Gelüp dükkānına her dilber-i nev-ḥaṭṭ u sīmīn-ten
Tırāş olup aña [her-gāh] ta‘līm-i fenn alur andan
Vefā ḥaṭṭın ḳazıdı rūy-ı ‘ālemden o nāzük-fen
İşin başa iletmiş ḫūbdur Berber Ḥasan Bālī
Tırāş-içün dükānına varan anuñ her āyīne
Naẓar idüp o mihr-i burc-ı ḥüsnüñ yüzi ayına
Gözi anda ḳalur ṣanki görinenleri āyīne
İşin başa iletmiş ḫūbdur Berber Ḥasan Bālī
Dükānına gelür baş baş anuñ meşhūr-ı dilberler
Olup iy Fażlī ol şāha dil ü cān-ile çākerler
Eger ḥışm itse işde tīġuñ işde başımuz derler
İşin başa iletmiş ḫūbdur Berber Ḥasan Bālī
In English
1. Go and look upon that lofty face in his shop; everyone has fallen in love with that youth, may he live to be old; I too had myself shaved and at once became his bareheaded abdal. A beauty who has brought his work to a head is Barber Hasan Bâlî. ("İşini başa iletmek", to bring one's work to a head, means to succeed; the barber's work, too, is upon the head.)
2. True, there are many beauties like houris in the gardens of beauty; all of them are cruel by nature and proud of their matchless beauty; but in the art of coquetry there is no face like his. A beauty who has brought his work to a head is Barber Hasan Bâlî. (The meaning of the word "yur" at the end of the line is not clear.)
3. Every silver-bodied beauty with newly sprouted down comes to his shop, has himself shaved and always learns the art from him; that subtle artist has scraped the line of faithfulness from the face of the world. A beauty who has brought his work to a head is Barber Hasan Bâlî. ("Ḫaṭṭ" means both the down on the cheek and a line or script.)
4. Whoever goes to his shop to be shaved, on looking at the moon face of that sun of the tower of beauty, his eye stays there, as if it were the images in a mirror. A beauty who has brought his work to a head is Barber Hasan Bâlî. (The word "āyīne" is used both as mirror and in the phrase "her āyīne", in any case.)
5. O Fazlî, famous beauties come to his shop head by head, become slaves to that shah with heart and soul, and say: "If you are angry, here is your sword, here are our heads". A beauty who has brought his work to a head is Barber Hasan Bâlî.
Literary and Historical Commentary
Structure of the Poem
The poem is a murabba (quatrain stanza poem) of five stanzas. The first three lines of each stanza rhyme among themselves; the fourth is repeated in every stanza as the refrain "İşin başa iletmiş ḫūbdur Berber Ḥasan Bālī". In the first stanza the refrain also shares the rhyme "-āli" (āli, meyyāli, abdāli, Bālī). The rhymes of the other stanzas are "-ūr", "-en", "-āyine" and "-erler". The metre is the "mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün" pattern of the hezec family. The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last stanza. "[her-gāh]" in the third stanza is a completion made in the edition.
Özkat publishes the poem as the eleventh musammat of the divan. The text is found only in the Fazlî divan section (fol. 223a) of the miscellany in the Hazine collection of the Topkapı Palace Museum Library. According to Özkat's description, this part of the miscellany was copied in 1149 (1736) and later bound in; it bears the note "left unfinished".
Meaning and Figures of Speech
Among the murabbas of praise Fazlî wrote for beauties famous in his time, Özkat also counts this poem written for Berber (Barber) Hasan Bâlî. Just as tailoring determines all the images of the poem in the preceding murabba, here barbering does: the shop, shaving, the mirror, the razor and the head. The phrase "işini başa iletmek" in the refrain is the main double entendre (tevriye) of the poem: it means both "to bring one's work to success" and that the barber's work is upon the head. In the first stanza the lover has himself shaved in his shop and becomes a "bareheaded abdal"; the shaven head is joined with the bareheadedness of dervishes.
In the third stanza a double entendre is made with the word "ḫaṭṭ": the young beauties who come to the shop have newly sprouted down (ḫaṭṭ) on their faces, while the barber beauty has scraped the "line of faithfulness", that is, the trace of faithfulness, from the face of the world. Scraping the face in shaving and wiping faithfulness from the world are expressed with the same verb. In the fourth stanza the word "āyīne" is used both in the phrase "her āyīne" (in any case) and in the sense of mirror; the eyes of those who come to be shaved stay there like an image in a mirror when they look at the barber's moon face. The likeness of sound between "ayına" (to his moon) and "āyīne" also supports this play. In the last stanza the beauties come to the shop "head by head", that is, one by one and with their heads, and say "here is your sword, here are our heads"; the barber's razor here turns into the beloved's sword. The poem is a lively example of verses describing the beauties of the craftsmen's shops, working the beloved's trade with a new find in every stanza.
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. 238-239, musammat no. 11 (Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Hazine, fol. 223a); also pp. 57-58 (on the murabbas) and pp. 119-120 (description of the manuscripts), https://katalog.marmara.edu.tr/veriler/yordambt/cokluortam/5E/T0051713.pdf.
Online sources
