Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Görmeyelden ḥüsnüñi iy Yūsuf-i gül-pīrehen
Bayram oldı Ḥażret-i Ya‘ḳūb-veş Beytü’l-ḥazen
Bendeñüm raḥm it baña ölsün mi sulṭānum seven
Meh-cebīnüm nāzenīnüm Muṣli-i sīmīn-beden
Bir güzelsin ‘ālem içre ḥüsnüñe yoḳdur naẓīr
Milket-i ḥüsn ü cemāl içre şeh-i ṣāḥib-serīr
Ben degül ancaḳ saña cümle cihān olmış esīr
Meh-cebīnüm nāzenīnüm Muṣli-i sīmīn-beden
‘Ārıżun ḫūrşīd ü alnuñ māhdur ḳaşuñ hilāl
Menzilüñ ḫūrşīd-i ‘ālem-tāb-veş burc-ı cemāl
Luṭf ḳıl ben ẕerreye hicr ile oldum pāy-māl
Meh-cebīnüm nāzenīnüm Muṣli-i sīmīn-beden
Gülşen-i ‘ālemde sen bir ġoncesin iy serv-i nāz
Serv-ḳadd u lāle-ḫadd u ser-firāz u dil-nevāz
Nāzı az it hey helāk oldum ḥabībüm nāzı az
Meh-cebīnüm nāzenīnüm Muṣli-i sīmīn-beden
Fażlī-i bī-çāre iy gül ḥüsnüñüñ şeydāsıdur
Gül-sitān-ı ‘ışḳuñuñ bir bülbül-i gūyāsıdur
Derdüñ ile ‘ālemüñ āvāre vü rüsvāsıdur
Meh-cebīnüm nāzenīnüm Muṣli-i sīmīn-beden

In English

1. O Joseph in a shirt of roses, ever since I could not see your beauty my feast day has turned, like Jacob's, into the house of sorrow (Beytü'l-hazen). I am your servant, pity me; my sultan, must the one who loves you die? My moon-browed one, my graceful one, silver-bodied Muslî.

2. You are a beauty in the world; your beauty has no peer; you are a shah who owns the throne in the land of beauty and grace; not I alone, but the whole world has become your captive. My moon-browed one, my graceful one, silver-bodied Muslî.

3. Your cheek is the sun, your brow the moon, your eyebrow the crescent; your dwelling, like that of the world-illuminating sun, is the constellation of beauty; be kind to me, a mote, I have been trampled by separation. My moon-browed one, my graceful one, silver-bodied Muslî. (The mote is the speck of dust seen in a sunbeam.)

4. O cypress of coquetry, you are a rosebud in the rose garden of the world; cypress-statured, tulip-cheeked, exalted and heart-comforting; lessen your coquetry, alas, I am undone, my beloved, lessen your coquetry. My moon-browed one, my graceful one, silver-bodied Muslî.

5. O rose, helpless Fazlî is madly in love with your beauty; he is an eloquent nightingale in the rose garden of your love; through your pain he is the vagabond and the disgrace of the world. My moon-browed one, my graceful one, silver-bodied Muslî.

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 "Meh-cebīnüm nāzenīnüm Muṣli-i sīmīn-beden". In the first stanza the words "pīrehen, ḥazen, seven" rhyme with "beden" in the refrain. The rhymes of the other stanzas are "-īr" (naẓīr, serīr, esīr), "-āl" (hilāl, cemāl, pāy-māl), "-āz" (nāz, dil-nevāz, az) and "-āsıdur" (şeydāsıdur, gūyāsıdur, rüsvāsıdur). The metre is the "fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün" pattern of the remel family. The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last stanza.

Özkat publishes the poem as the eighteenth musammat of the divan. The text is found only in the Fazlî divan section (fol. 226a) of the miscellany in the Hazine collection of the Topkapı Palace Museum Library. According to Özkat, this section was copied in 1149 (1736), was bound in later and bears the note "left unfinished".

Meaning and Figures of Speech

In listing the murabbas Fazlî wrote for the famous beauties of the time, Özkat assigns two poems to Muslî Şâh: this murabba and the twenty-second musammat. Here the beauty is called in the refrain "Muṣli-i sīmīn-beden", silver-bodied Muslî; the epithets "meh-cebīn" (moon-browed) and "nāzenīn" (graceful) accompany him.

The first stanza rests on the story of Joseph and Jacob. The beloved is "Yūsuf-ı gül-pīrehen", Joseph in a shirt of roses; the lover stands in the place of Jacob, who, parted from his son, shut himself in the house of sorrow. Fazlî joins this allusion to the feast day: the feast of the lover who cannot see the beauty has turned into "Beytü'l-ḥazen", the house of sorrow. This contrast between a day of joy and a house of mourning is the stanza's chief conceit. In the same stanza the lover calls himself "bende" (servant) and the beloved "sulṭān", and asks "ölsün mi sulṭānum seven" (my sultan, must the one who loves you die?).

The third stanza is a picture of the sky: the cheek is the sun, the brow the moon, the eyebrow the crescent; the beloved's dwelling is imagined as a constellation in which the sun resides. The lover counts himself a "ẕerre" (mote) before this sun. The speck of dust that appears and vanishes in a sunbeam is a familiar image in divan poetry for the lover's smallness and his turning toward the sun. In the fourth stanza the rosebud, the cypress and the tulip form a picture of a rose garden; the repetition of "nāzı az it" (lessen your coquetry) at the beginning and end of the line gives the plea the warmth of everyday speech. In the last stanza the lover is the "bülbül-i gūyā" of the rose garden, the eloquent nightingale that sings without pause; the traditional relation between rose and nightingale is set up here between the beloved and the poet.

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. 244-245, musammat no. 18 (Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Hazine, fol. 226a); 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