Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

‘Işḳuña baṣdum ḳadem el-ḥamdü-lillāhi’l-kerīm
اهدنا يا ايّها الهادي صراط المستقيم
Aḥsen-i taḳvīmisin Ḥaḳḳ’uñ oḳur ṭab‘-ı selīm
Muṣḥaf-ı ḥüsnüñde ruḫsāruñı cennātü’n-na‘īm
İy cemālüñ āyeti ‘ünvān-ı dīvān-ı ḳadīm
Ḳaşlaruñ ṭuġrası Bi’smillāhi’r-raḥmāni’r-raḥīm

Reading (I-2): Ahdinā yā eyyühe'l-hādī ṣırāṭü'l-müstaḳīm. The reading and meaning are from Özkat's footnote (p. 260).

Vādi-i ‘ışḳuñda itdüm gözlerüm yaşını nehr
Yār bildüm ben seni vü mā- ‘adāyı derd ü ḳahr
Ola tiryāk olsa senden ġayrı dilber baña zehr
Yoḳ durur mis̱lüñ velīkin bu ‘aceb iy ḫūn-ı dehr
Seni bu ḥüsn ile görürken sivādan şeyḫ-i şehr
Tevbe ‘arż eyler baña estaġfiru’-llāhi’l-‘aẓīm
Dil virüp yemm-i femine ol lebi peymānenüñ
Alma āhın key ṣaḳın ben ‘āşıḳ-ı dīvānenüñ
Ol elif-veş ḳaddine meyl eyleyüp cānānenüñ
‘Işḳına bel baġlayup ol gözleri mestānenüñ
Lām-ı zülf-i ser-nigūn naḳşına ol dür-dānenüñ
İy raḳīb el ṣunma kim لاتقربو امال اليتيم

Reading (III-6): İy raḳīb el ṣunma kim lā-taḳrabu māle'l-yetīm. The reading and meaning are from Özkat's footnote (p. 261).

Ben kime teşbīh idem sen māhı iy ḥūrī-liḳā
Mihr ise ḥüsnüñle farḳı var anuñ beyne’s-semā
Bāġ-ı ‘ālem içre bir gül-ruḫ naẓīr olmaz saña
Yoḳ durur mis̱lüñ cihānda ḥāṣılı hergiz şehā
Nāfe-i Çīnī ṣaçuñdan ḳıṣṣadur ammā Ḫıṭā
Nergis-i şehlā gözüñden nüsḫadur ammā saḳīm
Şāh-ı ‘ışḳam çerḫa dikdüm dūd-ı āhumdan ‘alem
‘Ālem-i ‘ışḳ içre oldum ‘ışḳ ile şāhum ‘alem
Eyleyüp hem-ṣoḥbetüm her rūz u şeb derd ü elem
Bezm-i firḳatde idüp cismüm dem-ā-dem cām-ı Cem
Görseñ iy dilber ki sensüz nice mey ‘ıyş eylerem
Eşk sāḳī āh muṭrib nāle hem-dem ġam nedīm
Sevdi biñ cān ile dil ol dilber-i meh-manẓarı
Kim anuñ mihr-i ruḫına ḫalḳ ḳızġın müşteri
Terk ider āḫir reh-i ‘ışḳında bu cān u seri
Fażlī gibi olup ol şāh-ı cihānuñ çākeri
Ġuṣṣa vü derd-ile pür-nemdür niẓāmī gözleri
Ṭutalı gözde maḳām ol ḳaşları nūn aġzı mīm

In English

I. Praise be to God the Generous, I have set foot on the path of your love. O you who guide to the right path, guide us to the right path. A person of sound nature reads you as the being God created "in the fairest form"; in the Qur'an of your beauty he reads your cheeks as "the gardens of bliss". O beloved, the verse of whose beauty is the heading of the eternal register, the tughra (imperial monogram) of your eyebrows is "In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate".

II. In the valley of your love I have made the tears of my eyes a river; I have known you as the beloved, and all but you as pain and torment. Even if a beauty other than you were an antidote for me, it would turn to poison. You have no equal; but, O beauty of the age (in the edition "ḫūn-ı dehr"), this is strange: when the sheikh of the city sees you with this beauty, he tells me he repents of everything other than God and says, "I ask forgiveness of God the Mighty."

III. O rival, having given your heart to the sea of the mouth of that beloved with lips like a wine cup, beware, do not draw down the sighs of a mad lover like me. I have inclined to that beloved's stature, upright like the letter elif; I have set my hopes on the love of the one with drunken eyes; I am caught by the pattern of the tresses of that single pearl, which are like the letter lâm turned upside down. O rival, do not stretch out your hand; for "Do not approach the property of the orphan."

IV. O houri-faced one, to whom shall I compare you, the moon? As for the sun, between it and your beauty there is as much difference as between earth and sky. In the garden of the world no rose-cheeked one is your equal; in short, O king, you have no like at all in the world. The musk of China is a story told from your hair, but it comes from Khitai, that is, it is mistaken; the languid narcissus is a copy taken from your eye, but a faulty and sick one.

V. I am the king of love; from the smoke of my sighs I have planted a banner on the heavens. O my king, in the world of love I have become famous through love. Every day and every night I have made pain and grief my companions of conversation, and at the gathering of separation I have made my body at every moment the cup of Jamshid. O beloved, if you could only see how I drink and make merry without you: tears are the cupbearer, the sigh the musician, the moan the companion, grief the boon companion.

VI. The heart has loved that moon-faced beauty with a thousand souls; people are as eager for the sun of the beloved's cheek as buyers. In the end the heart, becoming like Fazlî a servant of that king of the world, gives up this soul and head on the path of love. Since that beloved, whose eyebrows are nûn and whose mouth is mîm, has taken a place in the eye, the lover's eyes have been full of moisture with sorrow and pain. (The word "niẓāmī" in the fifth line is obscure; it can be understood as "regular, constant".)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a müseddes of six stanzas, written in the "fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün" pattern of the remel family of aruz (quantitative metre). The müseddes is a stanzaic poem (musammat) in which each stanza consists of six lines. In this poem the six lines of the first stanza rhyme with one another in the sound "-īm": kerīm, müstaḳīm, selīm, na‘īm, ḳadīm, raḥīm. In the following stanzas the first five lines rhyme with one another, and the sixth line returns to the "-īm" rhyme of the first stanza: ‘aẓīm, yetīm, saḳīm, nedīm, mīm. The stanzas are thus bound together. Mustafa Özkat introduces this poem as Fazlî's first müseddes in the müzdeviç manner and states that it was written on the theme of love. The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last stanza. It is not known to whom or when it was written.

Özkat publishes the poem as the thirty-third musammat of the divan from the Fazlî divan section (fol. 241a) of the miscellany in the Hazine collection of the Topkapı Palace Museum Library. The second line of the first stanza is entirely in Arabic; in the last line of the third stanza an Arabic phrase completes the words "İy raḳīb el ṣunma kim". In the edition the Arabic parts are printed in Arabic script. In the original text these parts have been copied letter by letter from the printed page of the edition; the readings and meanings are taken from Özkat's footnotes. In the printed text the first phrase is set with a gap as "اهد نا" and the second as "لاتقربو امال"; in the first the gap arises only from the typesetting and the word has been written joined, while the second has been left as printed.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The most marked feature of the poem is that it praises the beloved's beauty in the language of the Qur'an and of prayer. The first stanza is built like a scene of recitation: the beloved's beauty is a copy of the Qur'an, the cheeks are paradise, the verse of beauty is the heading of the eternal register, and the eyebrows are a tughra resembling the basmala at the head of the suras. The Arabic prayer in the second line recalls the request "Guide us to the right path" in the sura al-Fâtiha; "aḥsen-i taḳvīm" in the third line alludes to the words "We created man in the fairest form" in the sura al-Tîn. These two connections are our own observation. The poet also describes his entry upon the path of love by saying "el-ḥamdü lillāh", as if beginning an act of worship.

In the second stanza the sheikh of the city says that, before the beloved's beauty, he repents of everything other than God, that is, of "sivā". The sheikh's repentance is presented as a kind of defeat before this beauty; there is a subtle mockery here of the type of the ascetic. The stanza closes with the words "estaġfiru'llāhi'l-‘aẓīm" (I ask forgiveness of God the Mighty).

In the third stanza the motifs of love are expressed through letters: the beloved's stature is an elif, the tresses a lâm standing upside down. Özkat translates the Arabic phrase ending the stanza as "Do not approach the property of the orphan" and identifies it as a hadith. The same words occur in the Qur'an, in the suras al-An‘âm and al-Isrâ, in the form "ve lā taḳrabū māle'l-yetīm"; that the phrase is part of a Qur'anic verse is our own observation. What gives the stanza its point is the word "dür-dāne" (single pearl) in the fifth line. In divan poetry a matchless pearl is called "dürr-i yetīm" (orphan pearl); since the beloved is a single pearl, the beloved too is an "orphan", and the rival's stretching out his hand is counted as reaching for an orphan's property. This double entendre (tevriye) is our own inference.

In the fourth stanza two double entendres stand out. The word "Ḫıṭā" evokes both the land of Khitai, from which musk came, and the word "ḫaṭā" (mistake): musk is a story describing the scent of the beloved's hair, but a mistaken story. The word "saḳīm" likewise means both "sick" and "faulty": the narcissus is a copy taken from the beloved's eye, but a corrupt copy. In divan poetry the beloved's eye, with its languid and sick look, is likened to the narcissus. In the fifth stanza the word "‘alem" is used in two senses, "banner" and "fame", and forms a pun (cinas) with "‘ālem" (world). The last line sets up the gathering of separation as a drinking party: tears are the cupbearer, the sigh the musician, the moan the companion, grief the boon companion.

In the last stanza the word "müşteri" means both buyer and the name of the planet Jupiter; a congruence of images (tenasüp) is built between the sun-like cheek and the name of the planet. The last two lines of the stanza end with a game of letters. The beloved's eyebrows are likened to the letter nûn and the mouth to the letter mîm; when these two letters are placed side by side the word "nem" (moisture) is read. Since the beloved has taken a place in the lover's eye, that eye has been "pür-nem", full of moisture. This game of letters is our own observation.

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. 260-261, musammat no. 33 (Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Hazine, fol. 241a); also p. 58 (on the müseddes poems) and pp. 90-92 (idioms), https://katalog.marmara.edu.tr/veriler/yordambt/cokluortam/5E/T0051713.pdf.

Online sources