Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Āh kim devrān ayırdı āşinālardan beni
Eyledi bīgāne ẕevḳ-ile ṣafālardan beni
Cānuma sīr eyledi cevr ü cefālardan beni
Yā İlāhī sen ḫalāṣ it bu belālardan beni
Ṭāli‘-i naḥsumda bir ẕerre sa‘ādet görmedüm
Ḳara baḥtumda dirīġ ās̱ār-ı devlet görmedüm
Rūz u şeb miḥnetdeyüm bir laḥẓa rāḥat görmedüm
Yā İlāhī sen ḫalāṣ it bu belālardan beni
Dilberüm hercāyi baġrum ḫūn u baḫtum ser-nigūn
Dōstlar fāriġ göñül bī-çāre vü cismüm zebūn
Miḥnetüm çoḳ rāḥatum yoḳ ġuṣṣa vü derdüm füzūn
Yā İlāhī sen ḫalāṣ it bu belālardan beni
Her ḳaçan kāmum temennā eylesem ben dil-figār
Tīġ-ı in-şā’-Allah ile ḳatl ider ol ġamze-kār
Ḥāṣılı oldum ḳanı cānuma geçdi intiẓār
Yā İlāhī sen ḫalāṣ it bu belālardan beni
Ne teraḥḥum eyler ol şāh-ı Süleymān-saṭvetüm
Ne taḥammül itmege bir ḳılca ḳaldı ṭāḳatüm
Fażliyā ayaḳda ḳaldum virmedi el devletüm
Yā İlāhī sen ḫalāṣ it bu belālardan beni

In English

1. Ah, fate has parted me from my friends, made me a stranger to delight and joy, and wearied my soul with cruelty and oppression. O God, deliver me from these calamities.

2. In my ill-starred fortune I have not seen a mote of felicity; in my black luck, alas, I have not seen a trace of prosperity; night and day I am in affliction, I have not seen a moment's rest. O God, deliver me from these calamities.

3. My beloved is fickle, my breast is blood, my luck is upside down; my friends are indifferent, my heart helpless, my body broken; my affliction is great, I have no rest, my sorrow and pain are increasing. O God, deliver me from these calamities.

4. Whenever I, with my wounded heart, ask for my desire, that beloved with the glancing eye kills me with the sword of "God willing". In short, I have turned to blood, the waiting has pierced my soul. O God, deliver me from these calamities.

5. Neither does that shah of mine with the awe of Solomon take pity on me, nor is a hair's breadth of strength left me to endure. O Fazlî, I have been left standing on my feet, my fortune has not lent me a hand. O God, deliver me from these calamities.

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 "Yā İlāhī sen ḫalāṣ it bu belālardan beni". In the first stanza the refrain shares the redif (refrain word) "-lardan beni" with the other lines. The second stanza uses the redif "görmedüm", and the other stanzas the rhymes "-ūn", "-ār" and "-etüm". 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. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Özkat publishes the poem as the third musammat of the divan. The text is found only in the Fazlî divan section (fol. 220b) of the miscellany in the Hazine collection of the Topkapı Palace Museum Library. Like all Fazlî's murabbas it is a murabba with a refrain (mütekerrir), and like most of them it has five stanzas.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The poem is a complaint and a supplication. Fate has parted the poet from his friends, his fortune has proved ill-starred and his luck black, and he has been left in affliction night and day. The refrain turns this complaint to God in every stanza. As Özkat says of the murabbas, in these poems Fazlî generally treats love, the pain of love and longing for the beloved; here the faithlessness of the beloved and the wickedness of fortune are mingled.

The third stanza is an example of enumeration built from short attributive phrases: the beloved fickle, the breast blood, luck upside down, friends indifferent, the heart helpless, the body broken, affliction great, no rest. Each line is divided into three short parts, and this broken rhythm reflects the exhaustion in the content of the stanza. The find in the fourth stanza is the most striking place in the poem: whenever the lover asks for his desire, the beloved kills him with the sword of "God willing". The likening of an endless promise, that is, of putting someone off, to a deadly weapon is both witty and an observation taken from everyday life. The waiting "piercing his soul" is also an expression from spoken language.

In the last stanza the words "I have been left standing on my feet" and "has not lent me a hand" come side by side; a congruence of images (tenasüp) is made between foot and hand. Özkat illustrates the idiom "el vermek" (to lend a hand) from this stanza. The beloved being called "the shah with the awe of Solomon" accords with the tradition of divan poetry, which sees the beloved as a ruler and the lover as a servant. The language of the poem is plain; the plainness Özkat notes in the musammats is clearly seen in this murabba as well.

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. 232-233, musammat no. 3 (Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Hazine, fol. 220b); also pp. 57-58 (on the murabbas), p. 92 (idioms) and pp. 119-120 (description of the manuscripts), https://katalog.marmara.edu.tr/veriler/yordambt/cokluortam/5E/T0051713.pdf.

Online sources