Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mefā‘īlün Mefā‘īlün Fe‘ūlün

Bugün ben bende cānānum yitürdüm
Ża‘īfüm ḫasteyüm cānum yitürdüm
Ḳulum gūyā ki sulṭānum yitürdüm
Meded begler meded ḫānum yitürdüm
O şāhuñ ḫidmetine irdüñüz mi
Ġubār-ı pāyine yüz sürdüñüz mi
Ne yaña gitdügini gördüñüz mi
Meded begler meded ḫānum yitürdüm
Yürürüm vālih ü āşüfte vü zār
Çü Mecnūn Leyli’sinden ayru her bār
Ḫudā ḥaḳḳı degül misüz ḫaber-dār
Meded begler meded ḫānum yitürdüm
Tażarru‘lar idüñ siz de eḥaḳḳa
Ki vaṣl ide beni ol pādişāha
Aratdum yiri gögi eşk ü āha
Meded begler meded ḫānum yitürdüm
O Yūsuf-ruḫdan ayru Fażlī’yem ben
Çü Ya‘ḳūb oldı Beytü’l-ḥüzn mesken
Çıḳarsam aġlamaḳla n’ola gözden
Meded begler meded ḫānum yitürdüm

In English

1. Today I, the servant, have lost my beloved; I am weak, I am ill, I have lost my soul; it is as if I, the servant, have lost my sultan; help, my lords, help, I have lost my khan (my sovereign).

2. Did you attain the service of that shah? Did you rub your faces in the dust of his feet? Did you see which way he went? Help, my lords, help, I have lost my khan.

3. I walk about bewildered, distraught and moaning, like Mecnun parted each time from his Leyla; for God's sake, have you no news? Help, my lords, help, I have lost my khan.

4. You too, plead with God that he may unite me with that sovereign; I have searched earth and heaven for him with tears and sighs. Help, my lords, help, I have lost my khan.

5. I am Fazlî, parted from that Joseph-faced one; like Jacob, the house of sorrow has become my dwelling; is it any wonder if by weeping I put him (and my eyes) out of sight? Help, my lords, help, I have lost my khan.

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 "Meded begler meded ḫānum yitürdüm". In the first stanza all the lines end with the redif (refrain word) "yitürdüm"; the words "cānānum, cānum, sulṭānum, ḫānum" carry the rhyme. In the second stanza the endings "-üñüz mi" are repeated like a redif (irdüñüz mi, sürdüñüz mi, gördüñüz mi); the rhymes of the other stanzas are "-ār" (zār, bār, ḫaber-dār), "-a" (eḥaḳḳa, pādişāha, āha) and "-en" (ben, mesken, gözden). The metre is the "mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün fe‘ūlün" pattern of the hezec family; this short pattern gives the lines a quick and simple utterance. The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last stanza.

Özkat publishes the poem as the twenty-fifth musammat of the divan. The text is found only in the Fazlî divan section (fol. 242b) of the miscellany in the Hazine collection of the Topkapı Palace Museum Library; according to Özkat, this part was copied in 1149 (1736) and later bound in.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

Özkat says that Fazlî uses a plain language in his musammats and that this plainness is seen more clearly in the murabbas, and he quotes the first stanza of this poem as an example. The whole construction of the poem is a search for something lost. The lover has "lost" his beloved and asks the "begler" (lords) around him for news of him. The second stanza asks three questions in a row: did you attain the service of that shah, did you rub your faces in the dust of his feet, did you see which way he went. These questions are given in an utterance close to the speech of people searching for someone lost. Özkat illustrates the expressions "yüz sürmek" (to rub one's face) in this stanza and "gözden çıkarmak" (to put out of sight, to give up) in the last stanza in his list of idioms.

In the first stanza the beloved is called by four names in a row: "cānān" (beloved), "cān" (soul), "sulṭān" and "ḫān". The lover calls himself "bende" and "ḳul" (servant); this opposition of servant and sultan, servant and khan, continues the familiar relation of lover and beloved in divan poetry. The word "ḫānum" in the refrain should not be confused with the modern Turkish word "hanım" (lady); here it means "my sovereign".

The third and fifth stanzas rest on two allusions. In the third stanza the lover wanders bewildered and distraught like Mecnun parted from his Leyla. In the last stanza the beloved is "Yūsuf-ruḫ" (Joseph-faced) and the lover is Jacob: as Jacob, having lost Joseph, shut himself in the house of sorrow, so "Beytü'l-ḥüzn" has become Fazlî's dwelling. The last line of the stanza adds an idiom to this allusion: "gözden çıkarmak" can be read both as giving something up and, recalling how in the story Jacob lost his sight from weeping, as losing one's eyes. The phrase about searching "yiri gögi" (earth and heaven) in the fourth stanza is likewise a hyperbole taken from everyday speech.

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. 250-251, musammat no. 25 (Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Hazine, fol. 242b); also pp. 57-58 (on the murabbas and their plainness), pp. 92-94 (idioms) and pp. 119-120 (description of the manuscripts), https://katalog.marmara.edu.tr/veriler/yordambt/cokluortam/5E/T0051713.pdf.

Online sources