Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mef‘ūlü fā‘ilātün mef‘ūlü fā‘ilātün

Hicrüñde dūd-ı āhum irmese gökde aya
Her şeb ṭolardı mehden rūy-ı zemīn żiyāya
Olmaduġını sāyeñ bilmezdüm evvel āḫir
Bildüm ki sen meleksin olmaz melekde sāye
Ḳaşuñ çatup cihānda her laḥẓa ḫışm idersin
İy şeh ziyān degül mi peyveste ḫam-ı yāye
Şems-i ruḫuñdan irse ḫāk-i siyāha pertev
Gün gibi fer vireydi her ẕerre gökde aya
Sen şāha müşterīyem cān u cihān vireydüm
Bir dem viṣāl olursa ucuzdur ol bahāya
Yūsūf Mıṣır'da dirler ḥüsn ile oldı ṣulṭān
Görseydi ḳul olurdı sen şāh-ı meh-likāya
Ḳaşuñ ḫayāliyile döndi kemāna ‘Adlī
Her demde tīr-i āhı andan irer semāya

In English

1. If, in your separation, the smoke of my sigh did not reach the moon in the sky, the face of the earth would fill every night with light from the moon. (The smoke of the sigh darkens the moon.)

2. At first I did not know that you had no shadow; at last I understood that you are an angel, and an angel has no shadow.

3. You knit your brow and grow angry at every moment in the world; O king, is it not a pity for the curve of your joined, bow-like brows. (A knitted brow loses its beautiful bow-like curve.)

4. If a ray from the sun of your cheek fell on the black earth, every mote of dust would lend brightness like the sun to the moon in the sky.

5. O king, I am your buyer; I would give both my soul and the world. If there is union for a single moment, it is cheap at that price.

6. They say Joseph became sultan in Egypt through his beauty; had he seen you, the moon-faced king, he would have become your slave.

7. With the image of your brow Adlî has (bent and) turned into a bow; at every moment the arrow of his sigh reaches heaven from it.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The ghazal (gazel) has seven couplets and is written in the muzâri metre "mef‘ûlü fâ‘ilâtün mef‘ûlü fâ‘ilâtün". The rhyme rests on the sound "-ây", and the redif (refrain word) on the dative suffix: aya, ziyâya, sâye, yâye, bahâya, meh-likâya, semâya. The word "aya" (to the moon) is used twice in the rhyme position, in the opening couplet and in the fourth. It stands as no. 123 in Bayram's edition and is found in all five manuscripts (OR 30b, T 37b, M1 39a, M2 31a-31b, İBB 21a-21b). Two of the variants affect the meaning: "melekde" in the second couplet is "felekde" (in the sky) in OR; "ham-ı yâye" in the third couplet has the form "hatm-i sâye" in T. In the fifth couplet OR and İBB read "müşterîsem" (if I am a buyer) instead of "müşterîyem" (I am a buyer). To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal is built on images of the sky: moon, sun, mote, firmament and heaven follow one another throughout the poem. In the opening couplet the smoke rising from the lover's sigh climbs to the sky and blocks the moon. That the earth stays dark every night is the work not of the moon but of the lover's sigh; this is a hüsn-i ta‘lîl (poetic aetiology, an imagined cause) and at the same time a hyperbole (mübalağa) describing the greatness of the lover's sigh.

The second couplet is the most elegant invention of the ghazal. At first the lover has not noticed that the beloved has no shadow; at last he finds the reason: the beloved is an angel, and an angel has no shadow. Shadowlessness shows that the beloved is a being of light, freed from matter. The reading "felekde" in manuscript OR ties the couplet to the images of the sky, but the repetition between "melek" and "melekde" supports the reading preferred by the edition.

In the third couplet the beloved is called "şeh" (king) and is gently reproached for constantly knitting his brow in anger. "Peyveste", in its dictionary sense, means joined; brows meeting in the middle are counted a beauty in divan poetry, and these brows are likened to a bow. A knitted brow spoils the curve of the bow; the lover sees this as harm done to beauty. The fourth couplet carries the hyperbole back to the sky. The beloved's cheek is the sun; if one ray of it fell on the black earth, every mote of that earth would lend light to the moon like the sun. The sun and the mote are a frequent pair in divan poetry, because motes of dust in the air shine in sunlight. There is antithesis (tezat) between the black earth and the bright sun.

The fifth couplet is built in the language of trade. "Müşterî", in its dictionary sense, means both buyer and the planet Jupiter. Since moon, sun and sky are named throughout the ghazal, the word carries both senses together and becomes an example of tevriye (double entendre). The lover has become a buyer of the beloved; he offers soul and world as the price, and finds a moment's union cheap at that price. There is congruence of images (tenasüp) among the words buying, price and cheapness.

The sixth couplet alludes (telmih) to the story of Joseph. Joseph became sultan in Egypt through his beauty; but had he seen the beloved, he would have become his slave. According to the story of Joseph in the Qur'an, Joseph was sold by his brothers and taken to Egypt as a slave; to say that Joseph, who rose from slave to sultan, would become a slave again gives the couplet a subtle turn. The contrast between king and slave is openly present in this ghazal: in the third, fifth and sixth couplets the beloved is called "şeh" or "şâh". That the one who wrote these words was a sultan adds a particular irony to the expression of servitude in the couplet.

The closing couplet takes up again the comparison of brow and bow from the third couplet. Adlî has bent into a bow from thinking of the beloved's brow; from this bow the arrow of his sigh reaches heaven at every moment. There is congruence of images among brow, bow, arrow and sky, and the ghazal, after the smoke of the sigh rising to the sky in the opening couplet, closes with the arrow of the sigh shot into the sky.

Bibliography

  • Yavuz Bayram (ed.), Adlî Dîvânı (Dîvân-ı Sultân Bâyezîd-i Sânî), Ankara: Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yay., 2018, p. 161, poem no. 123 (manuscript information in the footnote on the same page). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr