Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün

Müjeñ tīri geçer sīnemden irer oḳ gibi cāna
Kemān-ebrūlaruñ bir kūşeden meyl itse ḳurbāna
Gül-i ḥüsnüñden ayru gülsitānda eylesem zārī
Çemen bülbülleri ta‘līm alurlar benden efġāne
Ser-i kūyuñ hevāsına cināna ṭālib olurlar
Ṭudaġuñ yādına cānlar virürler āb-ı ḥayvāne
Ṣaçuñ başlar keser ṭarrārlıḳ fenninde iy ḫūnī
Yüzüñ şeb-revlik ögredür ṣaçuñda māh-ı tābāne
Cihānda ḳalmayaydı ḫuşḳ u ter ḫākister olaydı
Şerār-ı berḳ-i āhum od bıraḳsa nār-ı sūzāne
İşiginde iti gibi eger yir bulmaġ isterseñ
Düriş neylerseñ eyle āşinā ol ‘Adli derbāne
Ḥayāt u mevt aḥkāmında şāh ile gedā birdür
Berāberdür cefā-yı çarḫ derviş ile ṣulṭāne

In English

1. If your bow-browed beloved inclines from a corner towards his victim, the arrow of your eyelash passes through my breast and reaches my soul like an arrow.

2. If, parted from the rose of your beauty, I were to moan in the rose garden, the nightingales of the meadow would learn lamenting from me.

3. (People) aspire to paradise out of longing for the head of your street; and they give their lives for the water of life because it reminds them of your lip. (Paradise is precious because it recalls the beloved's street, the water of life because it recalls his lip.)

4. O bloodthirsty one, your hair cuts off heads in the art of the cutpurse; your face teaches night-prowling to the shining moon within your hair. (The hair resembles night and the face the moon; the moon is like a night thief roaming in the darkness of the hair.)

5. If the spark of the lightning of my sigh left an ember in the burning fire, nothing dry or wet would remain in the world; everything would turn to ash.

6. Adlî, if you wish to find a place at his threshold like his dog, strive, do whatever you can, and become acquainted with the doorkeeper.

7. In the decrees of life and death the king and the beggar are one; the cruelty of the turning heavens is the same for the dervish and the sultan.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The ghazal (gazel) has seven couplets and is written in the hezec metre "mefâ‘îlün mefâ‘îlün mefâ‘îlün mefâ‘îlün". The rhyme rests on the sound "-ân", and the redif (refrain word) on the dative suffix (-a/-e): câna, kurbâna, efgâne, hayvâne, tâbâne, sûzâne, derbâne, sultâne. The pen name (mahlas) appears not in the last couplet, as is customary, but in the sixth; the seventh couplet that follows it is a couplet of wisdom. It stands as no. 126 in Bayram's edition and is found in all five manuscripts (OR 29a, T 38b, M1 40a-40b, M2 32a, İBB 20a-20b). In manuscript T the fifth and sixth couplets, that is, the pen-name couplet as well, are missing. OR reads "dudaguñ" instead of "tudaguñ" in the third couplet, and "şâhla" instead of "şâh ile" in the seventh. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet is built on images of arrow and bow. The beloved's brow is the bow, his eyelash the arrow; when the brow turns from a corner towards its victim, the arrow of the eyelash pierces the lover's breast and reaches his soul. "Kûşe", in its dictionary sense, means corner; the wounding glance that comes sidelong is described with this word. There is congruence of images (tenasüp) among kemân (bow), tîr (arrow), ok (arrow) and kurbân (victim); the lover is the prey or the sacrifice the arrow aims at.

In the second couplet the lover's moaning surpasses the nightingales. In divan poetry the nightingale is the symbol of the lover who moans for the rose; here the nightingales in the rose garden learn lamenting from the lover. This is a hyperbole (mübalağa), and there is congruence of images among the words rose, rose garden, meadow and nightingale. The third couplet is an example of hüsn-i ta‘lîl (poetic aetiology, an imagined cause). People's aspiring to paradise really comes from their longing for the beloved's street; their giving their lives for the water of life is likewise because it reminds them of his lip. "Hevâ", in its dictionary sense, means both air and desire, longing. The equivalences between paradise and the beloved's street, and between the water of life and the lip, are well-known pairings of divan poetry; in the couplet they are reversed so as to bring out the worth of the beloved.

The fourth couplet is built on images of theft and night. "Tarrâr", in its dictionary sense, means cutpurse, a thief who cuts and takes; the hair is so skilled in this art that it cuts off heads. "Şeb-rev", too, in its dictionary sense, means one who walks at night, a thief who roams by night. Since the hair is likened to night and the face to the moon, the face, which is the moon within the hair, is like a master teaching night-roaming. There is a congruence of images among the words hûnî (bloodthirsty), tarrâr, şeb-rev and cutting off heads. The fifth couplet is a hyperbole likening the lover's sigh to lightning. If the spark of the sigh left a fire, neither dry nor wet would remain in the world, and everything would become ash. The phrase "huşk u ter" (dry and wet) is, in its dictionary sense, an expression that covers everything; the antithesis (tezat) between its two parts underlines this comprehensiveness.

In the sixth couplet Adlî gives himself advice. If he wishes to find a place like a dog at the beloved's threshold, he must seek some way of becoming acquainted with the doorkeeper. There is a real irony in this couplet: the sultan who wrote the poem appears as a lover in need of the doorkeeper's friendship so that he may find a dog's place at a beloved's door.

The last couplet of the ghazal, however, leaves the subject of love and speaks a word of wisdom. In the decrees of life and death the king and the beggar are one; the cruelty of the heavens is the same for the dervish and the sultan. The antithesis between şâh (king) and gedâ (beggar), dervish and sultan, is the support of the couplet; these contrasts are set up to express equality before death. That these words came from the pen of a sultan lends the couplet a particular weight. After the sixth couplet, in which he puts himself in the place of a dog at the beloved's threshold, the couplet shows kingship and dervishhood alike beneath the same heavens.

Bibliography

  • Yavuz Bayram (ed.), Adlî Dîvânı (Dîvân-ı Sultân Bâyezîd-i Sânî), Ankara: Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yay., 2018, p. 164, poem no. 126 (manuscript information in the footnote on the same page). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr