Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Metre: Fā‘ilātün Fā‘ilātün Fā‘ilātün Fā‘ilün
Dün gice cem‘iyyet-i yārānı añdum aġladum
Anlaruñla sürdügüm devrānı añdum aġladum
Şem‘-veş yanup yaḳıldum anı añdum aġladum
Mācerā-yı ṣoḥbet-i cānānı añdum aġladum
Açılup gülşende güller ‘ıyş ider gördüm seḥer
Ḳarşusında şevḳ ile bülbüller eyler nāleler
İḫtiyārum ḳalmadı idince anlara naẓar
Mācerā-yı ṣoḥbet-i cānānı añdum aġladum
Dilber ile ‘ıyş ider gördüm bugün bir iki yār
Gūşe-i gül-zārda şevḳ ile itmişler ḳarār
Seyr idince reşk idüp ol şevḳ ü ẕevḳi zār u zār
Mācerā-yı ṣoḥbet-i cānānı añdum aġladum
Nāy gibi bezm-i firḳatde idüp her-dem fiġān
Ġuṣṣa vü ġamdan ṣürāḥi-veş derūnum ṭoldı ḳan
Cām gibi eşk-i ḫūnīnüm idüp gözden revān
Mācerā-yı ṣoḥbet-i cānānı añdum aġladum
Düşde gördüm olmuşam iy Fażlī māh ile ḳarīn
Bezm-gāh olmış baña bu ṭārem-i çerḫ-i berīn
Uyanup ol ḥasret ile eyleyüp zār u enīn
Mācerā-yı ṣoḥbet-i cānānı añdum aġladum
In English
1. Last night I remembered the company of friends and wept; I remembered the days I spent with them and wept; I burned and was consumed like a candle, I remembered it and wept; I remembered the story of our converse with the beloved and wept.
2. At dawn I saw the roses open and revel in the rose garden; before them the nightingales were lamenting with passion; when I looked at them I lost all control of myself. I remembered the story of our converse with the beloved and wept.
3. Today I saw one or two friends making merry with a charmer; they had settled with delight in a corner of the rose garden; seeing that rapture and pleasure, I moaned with envy and remembered the story of our converse with the beloved and wept.
4. Crying out at every moment like the reed flute in the gathering of separation, my inside filled with blood like a flask from grief and sorrow; letting my bloody tears flow from my eyes like a cup, I remembered the story of our converse with the beloved and wept.
5. O Fazlî, in a dream I had come close to the moon; this lofty dome of the sky had become my place of gathering; waking and moaning and lamenting with that longing, I remembered the story of our converse with the beloved and wept.
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 "Mācerā-yı ṣoḥbet-i cānānı añdum aġladum". In the first stanza all the lines end with the redif (refrain words) "añdum aġladum"; the words "yārānı, devrānı, anı, cānānı" carry the rhyme. The rhymes of the other stanzas are "-er/-ar" (seḥer, nāleler, naẓar), "-ār" (yār, ḳarār, zār), "-ān" (fiġān, ḳan, revān) and "-īn" (ḳarīn, berīn, enīn). 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 twenty-fourth musammat of the divan. The text is found only in the Fazlî divan section (fol. 242a) 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.
Meaning and Figures of Speech
The poem is one of remembrance and longing. The speaker seems to write at a moment when the gatherings of the past have broken up and he has been parted from the beloved and his friends. Each stanza describes a sight that makes him weep: in the first the company of friends and the days spent with them, in the second the roses opening at dawn and the lamenting nightingales, in the third one or two friends making merry with a charmer in a corner of the rose garden, in the fourth the gathering of separation, and in the last a dream. The words "añdum aġladum" (I remembered and wept) in the refrain, two verbs one after the other, make a plain utterance close to everyday speech; their fourfold repetition in the first stanza brings out this plainness.
The third stanza openly states the envy felt at the happiness of others: seeing the friends making merry with a charmer, the lover feels "reşk" (jealousy). The picture of rose and nightingale in the second stanza gives the same feeling from within nature; the nightingale lamenting before the opening rose recalls the lover's own state. The fourth stanza is a picture of a gathering: the cry like the reed flute, the inside filled with blood like a flask, and the eye shedding blood like a cup. "Nāy" (reed flute), "ṣürāḥī" (flask) and "cām" (cup) form a congruence of images (tenasüp). In Özkat's list of idioms, the idiom "içine (yüreğine) kan dolmak" (one's heart to fill with blood) is illustrated from this stanza, and "yanıp yakılmak" (to burn and be consumed) from the first.
The last stanza rests on the contrast between dream and waking. In his dream the lover had come close to the moon, and the dome of the sky had become his place of gathering; the moon is here the familiar counterpart of the beloved. On waking this vision turns into longing, and the poem closes again with the refrain, with the converse remembered and wept over.
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. 250, musammat no. 24 (Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Hazine, fol. 242a); also pp. 57-58 (on the murabbas), pp. 92-93 (idioms) and pp. 119-120 (description of the manuscripts), https://katalog.marmara.edu.tr/veriler/yordambt/cokluortam/5E/T0051713.pdf.
Online sources
