Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Rūz-ı evvelde görüp dīdār-ı yāri ‘ayn-ı cān
‘Işḳ-ı dīdār ile cūşān u ḫurūşān her zamān
Ṣu gibi her ṣuya idüp gözlerüm yaşın revān
Göñlüm ārām eylemez ṭaġlara düşmemdür hemān
Sen şehe ḳul olmaġ ile ġuṣṣadan āzād olup
Ḳurtulup dünyā ġamından ‘ışḳ ile dil-şād olup
Sen lebi Şīrīn’e yüz biñ cān ile Ferhād olup
Göñlüm ārām eylemez ṭaġlara düşmemdür hemān
Leyli-i zülfüñ hevāsını görüp çıḳ cān gibi
Sīne-i bī-kīnede ḥıfẓ eyleyüp īmān gibi
Ḫalḳdan vaḥşet idüp Mecnūn-ı ser-gerdān gibi
Göñlüm ārām eylemez ṭaġlara düşmemdür hemān
Zülfüñ evcinden düşüp uzun uzaḳ sevdālara
Ḫalḳdan geçdüm ḳaçup dīvāne-veş ṣaḥrālara
Ka‘be ḥaḳḳı deşt ü ṭaġı vermezem dünyālara
Göñlüm ārām eylemez ṭaġlara düşmemdür hemān
Ḫalḳ-ı ‘ālemden idüp ‘ışḳ ile iy Fażlī firār
Ṭāġlarda düşdi vaḥşīlerle ülfet iḫtiyār
Bir gözi āhūya ser-gerdān olup dīvāne-vār
Göñlüm ārām eylemez ṭaġlara düşmemdür hemān

In English

1. Having seen the beloved's face with the eye of the soul on the first day (in eternity), surging and seething at every moment with love for that face, letting the tears of my eyes flow like water into every stream: my heart finds no rest, I must at once take to the mountains.

2. Freed from sorrow by being a servant to you, the shah, freed from the grief of the world and glad of heart with love, becoming a Ferhad with a hundred thousand souls to you whose lip is Shirin: my heart finds no rest, I must at once take to the mountains. (Ferhad is the lover who cut through mountains to win Shirin.)

3. Seeing the longing for your Leyla-like lock, going out (of the body) like the soul, keeping it like faith in my breast free of malice, shying away from the people like bewildered Mecnun: my heart finds no rest, I must at once take to the mountains.

4. From the summit of your lock I have fallen into long, far passions; leaving the people behind, I have fled like a madman into the plains; by the right of the Kaaba, I would not exchange the desert and the mountain for worlds: my heart finds no rest, I must at once take to the mountains.

5. O Fazlî, fleeing with love from the people of the world, I have chosen friendship with the wild beasts in the mountains; wandering like a madman for one with the eyes of a gazelle: my heart finds no rest, I must at once take to the mountains.

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 "Göñlüm ārām eylemez ṭaġlara düşmemdür hemān". In the first stanza the refrain also shares the rhyme "-ān". The redifs (refrain words) "olup" in the second stanza, "gibi" in the third and "-lara" in the fourth are used; the rhyme of the last stanza is "-ār". 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 eighth musammat of the divan. The text is found only in the Fazlî divan section (fol. 222a) 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. It stands on the same folio as the preceding murabba and in subject is like its continuation: there the lover wants to leave his homeland, here he takes to the mountains.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The poem rests on the two great love stories of divan poetry. In the second stanza the lover has become a Ferhad with a hundred thousand souls to the beloved whose lip is Shirin; Ferhad's cutting through mountains to win Shirin connects with the words "taking to the mountains" in the refrain. In the third and fifth stanzas Mecnun comes to the fore: the beloved's lock is likened to Leyla, the lover shies away from the people like Mecnun, makes friends with the wild beasts in the mountains and wanders for one "with the eyes of a gazelle". The name Leyla is connected in Arabic with night; the likening of the black lock to Leyla rests on this connection. Mecnun's friendship with the gazelles in the desert is also a familiar detail of the story; the word "āhū" (gazelle) in the fifth stanza evokes both this story and the beloved's gazelle eyes.

The phrase "rūz-ı evvel" (the first day) in the first stanza recalls the first meeting of souls at the moment of creation; the lover saw the beloved's face with the eye of the soul on that very day. In the fourth stanza a link is made between "the summit of the lock" and "long, far passions": the lock is long, and the word "sevda" evokes both passion and the colour black. The poet says that by the right of the Kaaba he would not exchange the desert and the mountain for worlds; withdrawal from the world here is a chosen state. The building of each stanza from linked converbs (görüp, olup, idüp: having seen, having become, making) gives the feeling of a sentence running breathlessly on to the refrain.

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. 236-237, musammat no. 8 (Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Hazine, fol. 222a); 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