Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mef‘ūlü Fā‘ilātü Mefā‘īlü Fā‘ilün

Düşdi türāba bir gül-i nāzük-‘iẕār ḥayf
Ṣoldı ḫazān-ı mergle bir nev-bahār ḥayf
Vardı hevāya ḫırmen-i ṣabr u ḳarār ḥayf
Ẓulm itdi rūz-gār diyin rūz-gār ḥayf
Ḳıydı o nev-cüvāna meded rūz-gār ḥayf
Derdā vü ḥasretā vü dirīġā hezār ḥayf
Ol ġonce kim netīce-i ṣun‘-ı İlāh-idi
Nām-ı şerīfi Ḥażret-i Maḥmūd Şāh-idi
Başında devlet ü şeref anuñ külāh-idi
İrdi ḫusūfa çerḫ-i melāḥatde māh idi
Ḳıydı o nev-cüvāna meded rūz-gār ḥayf
Derdā vü ḥasretā vü dirīġā hezār ḥayf
Açılmadan o ġonce ‘aceb ṣoldı hey dirīġ
Bār-ı ümīdi dest-i ecel yoldı hey dirīġ
‘Ömr-i şerīfi gül gibi az oldı hey dirīġ
Peymāne-i ḥayātı ne tīz ṭoldı hey dirīġ
Ḳıydı o nev-cüvāna meded rūz-gār ḥayf
Derdā vü ḥasretā vü dirīġā hezār ḥayf
Dünyā didükleri ne ‘aceb cān-sitān imiş
Bī-raḥm u bī-mürüvvet imiş bī-amān imiş
Mihrine dil verenlere nā-mihr-bān imiş
‘Ahdinde yoḳ ṣadāḳat ü ḳavli yalan imiş
Ḳıydı o nev-cüvāna meded rūz-gār ḥayf
Derdā vü ḥasretā vü dirīġā hezār ḥayf
İy dil hezār derd ile ḳıl nāle vü fiġān
İy göz firāḳ u ḥasret ile demdür aġla ḳan
İy sīne nār-ı zecr ü meşaḳḳatde ṭurma yan
İy cān belā vü miḥnet ile tenden ol revān
Ḳıydı o nev-cüvāna meded rūz-gār ḥayf
Derdā vü ḥasretā vü dirīġā hezār ḥayf
Bir serv idi ki ḳāmeti ṭūbā-mis̱āl idi
Şimşād-ı dil-keş-i çemen-i i‘tidāl idi
Ruḫsār-ı āfitāb-idi ḳaşı hilāl idi
Gitdi naẓardan āh nidem ṣan ḫayāl idi
Ḳıydı o nev-cüvāna meded rūz-gār ḥayf
Derdā vü ḥasretā vü dirīġā hezār ḥayf
Bu çerḫ-i bī-vefā ne ‘aceb cünbiş eyledi
Devren yeñildi ‘aksine mi gerdiş eyledi
Bilmen ne düşdi hey nice müşkil iş eyledi
Cümle cihānı derd-ile pür-nāliş eyledi
Ḳıydı o nev-cüvāna meded rūz-gār ḥayf
Derdā vü ḥasretā vü dirīġā hezār ḥayf
Bir āteş urdı ḳalbimüze hicr-i yār āh
Sūz u güdāzı eyledi çoḳ cāna kār āh
Yād-ı fenā ile yele vardı ḳarār āh
Ṭoldı belā vü derd ile dār u diyār āh
Ḳıydı o nev-cüvāna meded rūz-gār ḥayf
Derdā vü ḥasretā vü dirīġā hezār ḥayf
Nūr ola ḳabri dāyim olup ġarḳa-i rıżā
Ṣabr-ı cemīl idüp atasına anuñ ‘aṭā
Dünyāda v’āḫiretde ‘ıvażlar vire Ḫudā
Fażlī didükçe ḥasret ile ḫalḳ dāyimā
Ḳıydı o nev-cüvāna meded rūz-gār ḥayf
Derdā vü ḥasretā vü dirīġā hezār ḥayf

In English

1. Alas, a rose of delicate cheek has fallen to the dust; alas, a young spring has withered in the autumn of death. Alas, the harvest of patience and peace has gone to the wind; time has done a wrong, say "time", alas. Time has slain that young sapling; help, alas. Ah grief, ah longing, ah pity, a thousand times alas.

2. That bud, which was the fruit of God's creation, was the youth whose noble name was His Highness Mahmud Şah. Fortune and honour were the cap upon his head; he was a moon in the sky of beauty, and he was eclipsed. Time has slain that young sapling; help, alas. Ah grief, ah longing, ah pity, a thousand times alas.

3. How strange, that bud withered before it opened, ah pity; the hand of death plucked the fruit of his hope, ah pity. His noble life was short as a rose's, ah pity; how quickly the cup of his life was filled, ah pity. Time has slain that young sapling; help, alas. Ah grief, ah longing, ah pity, a thousand times alas.

4. What a strange taker of souls is this thing they call the world; it is without mercy, without kindness, without pity. To those who give their hearts to its love it is unloving; there is no faithfulness in its pledge, and its word is a lie. Time has slain that young sapling; help, alas. Ah grief, ah longing, ah pity, a thousand times alas.

5. O heart, moan and lament with a thousand griefs; O eye, now is the time to weep blood with parting and longing. O breast, do not rest, burn in the fire of rebuke and hardship; O soul, depart from the body with calamity and affliction. Time has slain that young sapling; help, alas. Ah grief, ah longing, ah pity, a thousand times alas.

6. He was a cypress whose stature was like the Tuba tree of Paradise; he was the charming box tree of the meadow of balanced beauty. His cheek was the sun, his brow the crescent; ah, he has gone from sight, what shall I do, it was as if he were a dream. Time has slain that young sapling; help, alas. Ah grief, ah longing, ah pity, a thousand times alas.

7. What a strange motion this faithless heaven has made; has its cycle been renewed, or has it turned backwards? I do not know what has befallen, ah, what a hard thing it has done; it has filled the whole world with grief and moaning. Time has slain that young sapling; help, alas. Ah grief, ah longing, ah pity, a thousand times alas.

8. The parting from the beloved has set a fire in our hearts, ah; it has made burning and melting the task of many a soul, ah. With the remembrance of mortality our peace has gone to the wind, ah; house and homeland are filled with calamity and grief, ah. Time has slain that young sapling; help, alas. Ah grief, ah longing, ah pity, a thousand times alas.

9. May his grave be ever filled with light, drowned in God's good pleasure; may God grant his father a beautiful patience and give him recompense in this world and the next; so that the people, like Fazlî, may ever say with longing: Time has slain that young sapling; help, alas. Ah grief, ah longing, ah pity, a thousand times alas.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is an elegy (mersiye) in the form of a müseddes of nine stanzas. The müseddes is a verse form built of six-line stanzas. Here the first four lines of each stanza rhyme among themselves, and the last two lines are repeated in every stanza as the couplet "Ḳıydı o nev-cüvāna meded rūz-gār ḥayf / Derdā vü ḥasretā vü dirīġā hezār ḥayf". Mustafa Özkat therefore describes the poem as a müseddes with a refrain (mütekerrir). In the first stanza all four lines end, like the refrain, with the redif (refrain word) "ḥayf"; in the following stanzas redifs such as "-āh idi", "hey dirīġ", "imiş", "eyledi" and "āh" are used. The metre is "mef‘ūlü fā‘ilātü mefā‘īlü fā‘ilün" of the muzari family. The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last stanza in the words "Fażlī didükçe".

Özkat publishes the elegy as the 34th musammat of the divan from folio 111a of the miscellany Âşir Efendi 314 in the Süleymaniye Library. Its heading in the manuscript is "Mers̱iye-i Merḥūm Maḫdūm-zāde-i Ṣun‘ullah Beg"; Özkat explains the heading as an elegy written on the death of the son of Sun'ullah Beg, one of Şehzade Mustafa's viziers. The name of the youth who died is given in the second stanza as "Ḥażret-i Maḥmūd Şāh".

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The central image of the elegy is a flower that withers before its time. The youth is called in the first stanza a rose of delicate cheek and a young spring withered by the autumn of death, and in the third a bud that withered before it opened; the line "‘Ömr-i şerīfi gül gibi az oldı" is a simile (teşbih) resting on the short life of the rose. In the sixth stanza the image passes to the cypress and the box tree, which describe the youth's stature; "ruḫsār-ı āfitāb" and "ḳaşı hilāl" liken his face to the sun and the moon. The expression "irdi ḫusūfa", he was eclipsed, in the second stanza describes death as the darkening of the moon in the sky of beauty. All these images are used in a congruence (tenasüp) belonging to spring, the garden and the sky.

The fourth and seventh stanzas are the part of the elegiac tradition that reproaches the world and heaven. The world is "cān-sitān", a taker of souls, with no faithfulness in its word; heaven has made a "cünbiş", a motion, and its cycle has turned backwards. In the fifth stanza the poet addresses the heart, the eye, the breast and the soul one by one; this address, repeated four times in the same pattern, is a figure of apostrophe and repetition (nida and tekrir). The cry "meded" in the refrain and the exclamations "derdā, ḥasretā, dirīġā" recall the refrain "Meded begler meded" of the murabba elegy Fazlî wrote for Şehzade Mustafa. The last stanza is the traditional prayer of the elegy: for the dead, that his grave be filled with light; for the father left behind, "ṣabr-ı cemīl", a beautiful patience.

Historical Context

Sun'ullah Beg is also the subject of a kaside in Fazlî's divan. According to Özkat's note, kaside 32 was written for Sun'ullah, one of Şehzade Mustafa's viziers; in the kaside it is said that "Muṣṭafā Ḫān'a vezīr oldı yine", that is, he became Mustafa's vizier once again, and that he regained "evvelki maḳāmın", his former post. Besides this elegy, Fazlî also composed three chronograms on the death of Sun'ullah Beg's son Mahmud; one of them is in Persian. According to Özkat the chronograms place the death in 955 (1548). In these years Şehzade Mustafa was sanjak governor of Amasya and Fazlî was his divan secretary; the elegy therefore tells of a death in the close circle of the prince's court in Amasya. How old Mahmud was when he died is unknown; the expressions "nev-cüvān" (young sapling) and "the bud that withered before it opened" in the poem show that he died very young. No information on Sun'ullah Beg beyond what Özkat gives could be found in this study.

Bibliography

Online sources