Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mef‘ūlü Mefā‘īlü Mefā‘īlü Fe‘ūlün

Çeşmüm nice bir derd ü firāḳ ile ter olsun
Hicr ile ya göñlüm nice zīr ü zeber olsun
Her laḥẓa o düşmenler ile cilve-ger olsun
Hercāyi güzel sevmeyeyin tevbeler olsun
Ḫūbān-ı cihān içre bugün mihr ü vefā yoḳ
Ammā ki ‘itāb-ı sitem ü cevr ü cefā çoḳ
Ṣabr eyleyeyin [dil] ne çeker sīm çeküp ayruḳ
Hercāyi güzel sevmeyeyin tevbeler olsun
Hicrinde nice bir çekeyin her birinüñ ġam
Derd ü elemin eyleyüben cānuma hem-dem
Şimden gerü ger iy dil-i dīvāne ölürsem
Hercāyi güzel sevmeyeyin tevbeler olsun
Anlar olalar hem-ḳadeḥ aġyār ile her ān
Ben nice ṣurāḥī gibi her-dem yudayın ḳan
Olmazsa vefā-dārını bulmaḳlıġa imkān
Hercāyi güzel sevmeyeyin tevbeler olsun
Bālā ḳadi başuma belādur çü ṭurursa
Yüz fitne ḳopar nāz-ile iy Fażlī otursa
Ger ḥüsn ile ḫūrşīd-i cihān-tāb [da] olursa
Hercāyi güzel sevmeyeyin tevbeler olsun

In English

1. How much longer shall my eye be wet with pain and separation, how much longer shall my heart be turned upside down by parting; while she flirts every moment with my enemies. I swear repentance, let me not love a fickle beauty.

2. Today among the beauties of the world there is no love or faithfulness, but there is much reproachful scolding, oppression and cruelty. Let me be patient; what more should the heart suffer from now on in pursuit of the silver-bodied. I swear repentance, let me not love a fickle beauty. (The syntax of the third line is obscure.)

3. How much longer shall I bear, in separation from her, the grief of each of them, making their pain and sorrow the companions of my soul; O mad heart, even if I die from now on, I swear repentance, let me not love a fickle beauty.

4. Let them be drinking companions with strangers at every moment, while I, like a flask, swallow blood without end; if it is impossible to find a faithful one, I swear repentance, let me not love a fickle beauty. (The red wine in the flask is likened to swallowed blood.)

5. O Fazlî, if that tall one stands up, it is a calamity upon my head; if she sits down coquettishly, a hundred seditions break out; even if she were the world-illuminating sun in beauty, I swear repentance, let me not love a fickle beauty.

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 "Hercāyi güzel sevmeyeyin tevbeler olsun". In the first stanza the refrain also shares the redif (refrain word) "olsun". The rhymes of the other stanzas are "-oḳ", "-em", "-ān" and "-ursa". The metre is the "mef‘ūlü mefā‘īlü mefā‘īlü fe‘ūlün" pattern of the hezec 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 fifth musammat of the divan. The text is found only in the Fazlî divan section (fol. 221a) 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", and some of its leaves are missing. "[dil]" in the second stanza and "[da]" in the fifth are completions made in the edition.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The poem is a vow of repentance made from fickle beauties. The word "hercāyi" means in Persian "one who is everywhere", that is, bound to nowhere, and is one of the epithets of the faithless beloved in divan poetry. In every stanza the lover declares anew that he gives up loving beauties who are bound to no one and flirt every moment with others. The repetition of "tevbeler olsun" (I swear repentance) in the refrain of every stanza makes one feel that the lover is trying to convince himself; for within the stanzas the beloved's absence, flirting and coquetry are still being described. As Özkat says of Fazlî's murabbas, the poem treats love, the pain of love and longing for the beloved.

The fourth stanza contains a fine simile: while the rivals are drinking companions of the beloved, the lover, like a flask, swallows blood without end. The red wine in the flask is likened to the blood the lover pours into himself; Özkat illustrates the idiom "kan yutmak" (to swallow blood) from this stanza. In the fifth stanza a play on sound is made between "bālā" (tall) and "belā" (calamity), and a contrast between standing up and sitting down: if the beloved stands, it is a calamity, if she sits, a hundred seditions break out. This line rests on the tradition of likening the beloved's stature to the Resurrection; the idiom "fitne koparmak" (to raise sedition) is also in Özkat's list. In the last line the poet says that he will give her up even if she were the world-illuminating sun; the repentance meets its hardest test in this line. The language of the poem, as in most of Fazlî's murabbas, is plain; Arabic and Persian construct phrases are few, and the sentences follow the flow of spoken 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, p. 234, musammat no. 5 (Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Hazine, fol. 221a); 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