Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün

Āh kim derdüme dermān itmege ‘āciz ṭabīb
Derdmend ü mübtelā üftādeyem merd-i ġarīb
Kūy-ı dil-berde raḳībüñ ta‘nı bildürdi baña
Ḫār ucından gülsitān içre ne çekmiş ‘andelīb
‘Andelīb-i dil nice derd ile feryād itmesün
Gül-‘iẕārına görür ḫār-ı raḳīb olmuş ḳarīb
Her ḳaçan dil derdinüñ dermānını itsem su’āl
Ḳaşları yāyın ḳurup müjgān-ı zaḫm olur mecīb
Ger lebüñ cām-ı meyin yād itse minberden yire
Na‘ra urup kendüyi ser-mest ide ol dem ḫaṭīb
Ḳaşlaruñ miḥrābına secde ider ehl-i ṣalāt
Küfr-i zülfüñe perestār iy ṣanem ehl-i ṣalīb
Var daḫı ‘Adlī cihānda ‘ayş u nūş itme ṭaleb
Çün saña bezm-i ezelde cām-ı ġamdandur naṣīb

In English

1. Alas, the physician is powerless to cure my pain; I am a sufferer, afflicted and fallen, a stranger and alone.

2. In the street of the beloved, the rival's taunts have taught me what the nightingale suffered in the rose garden from the point of the thorn.

3. How should the nightingale of the heart not cry out in pain, when it sees the thorn of the rival grown close to the beloved's rose-like cheek?

4. Whenever I ask for a remedy for my heart's pain, she draws the bow of her eyebrows, and the answer I receive is the wound of her lashes. (The eyebrow is likened to a bow and the lash to an arrow; the answer to the question is a fresh wound.)

5. Should the preacher once recall the wine-cup of your lips, he would cry out at that very moment, lose himself, and come down drunk from the pulpit to the ground.

6. O idol of beauty, the people of prayer prostrate themselves before the prayer niche of your eyebrows, and the people of the cross (the Christians) worship and serve the unbelief of your tress.

7. Go now, Adlî, and seek no pleasure or wine in this world, for at the feast of pre-eternity your portion was poured from the cup of grief.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a ghazal (gazel) of seven couplets. Its metre is the remel pattern of aruz (quantitative metre), "fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün". There is no redif (refrain word); the rhyme is the "-īb" sound of "ṭabīb, ġarīb, ‘andelīb, ḳarīb, mecīb, ḫaṭīb, ṣalīb, naṣīb". The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet. The ghazal is number 10 in Bayram's edition and is the second poem in the section of the divan given to ghazals ending in the letter b. It is found in the OR, T, M1 and M2 manuscripts and is absent from İBB; however, not every manuscript gives all the couplets. The first couplet is missing from M1 and M2, and the third and sixth couplets from T. Only the OR manuscript gives all seven couplets. It is not known to whom or when it was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal opens with the familiar picture of love as an illness. The lover is in pain and the physician can find no cure; because "derd" (pain) and "dermān" (remedy), "ṭabīb" (physician) and "derdmend" (sufferer) are drawn from the same field, the first couplet builds a congruence of images (tenasüp). The phrase "merd-i ġarīb", a stranger, also conveys the lover's loneliness.

The second and third couplets are built on the conceit of the rose and the nightingale. In divan poetry the rose stands for the beloved, the nightingale for the lover, and the rose's thorn for the rival who never leaves the beloved's side. Adlî sets up this correspondence in two steps. First the rival's taunts teach him what the nightingale suffered from the thorn; that is, the lover understands the nightingale's pain through his own. Then the lover's heart becomes the "nightingale of the heart" itself and cries out on seeing the thorn of the rival grown close to the beloved's rose cheek. Since the thorn never leaves the rose, the rival's closeness to the beloved is also explained by this image. The repetition of "‘andelīb" (nightingale) at the end of the second couplet and the start of the third ties the two couplets together.

In the fourth couplet the beloved's eyebrow is imagined as a bow and her lash as an arrow. The lover asks for a cure for his pain; instead of answering, the beloved draws the bow of her eyebrows, and the one who answers is the wound opened by the lash. The contrast between question and answer, remedy and wound, lends the couplet a subtle irony. In the T manuscript "ḥacīb" (doorkeeper, chamberlain) is read in place of "mecīb" (one who answers); with this reading the wound of the lash becomes the guard who meets the lover at the door. The edition's footnote cites the word in the form "mücīb"; both spellings mean "one who answers".

The fifth and sixth couplets are the boldest part of the ghazal. In the fifth, the preacher, the cleric who delivers the sermon from the pulpit of the mosque, loses himself at a memory that likens the beloved's lips to a wine-cup, and comes down from the pulpit with a cry. In divan poetry the defeat before love of figures of piety such as the ascetic, the sermoniser and the preacher is a frequent object of mockery. The sixth couplet extends this idea to two faiths. Because the arched shape of the eyebrow is likened to the prayer niche (mihrab), those who pray prostrate themselves before the beloved's eyebrows; because the darkness of the tress evokes unbelief, the people of the cross, that is the Christians, serve her tress. The words "ṣalāt" (prayer) and "ṣalīb" (cross) are close in sound and stand opposed in meaning; prayer niche and unbelief, prostration and worship continue the same contrast. Addressing the beloved as "ṣanem" (idol) suits a couplet which says she is worshipped from both sides.

In the last couplet the poet turns to himself. Bezm-i ezel, or bezm-i elest, is in divan poetry the pre-eternal assembly in which, at the time of creation, the souls answered "yes" to God's question "Am I not your Lord?". According to the poets, lovers fell in love with their beloveds at this assembly and drank the wine of love on that day. Building on this belief, Adlî says that his own portion was poured at that assembly from the cup of grief, so there is no sense in seeking pleasure and wine in this world. The helplessness at the start of the ghazal ends by being tied to destiny. The word "meyin" in the fifth couplet appears in M2 as "meyüñ".

Bibliography

  • Yavuz Bayram (ed.), Adlî Dîvânı (Dîvân-ı Sultân Bâyezîd-i Sânî), Ankara: Ministry of Culture and Tourism Publications, 2018, p. 48, poem no. 10; manuscript variants in the footnotes on the same page.
  • Yusuf Şevki Yavuz - İskender Pala, "Bezm-i Elest", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/bezm-i-elest (the assembly of elest and its treatment in divan poetry).

Online sources