Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mefā‘ilün fe‘ilātün mefā‘ilün fe‘ilün

Yüzini görse anuñ ravża-i ‘İrem yirine
İşitse lebleri vaṣfını cām-ı Cem yirine
Muḳīm olalı göñülde ḫayāli leblerinüñ
Gözüme ḫūn-ı ciger ṭoldı şimdi nem yirine
Fiġān ki gözleri ẓulminden ol şehüñ bir gün
Elümle çāk ideyin sīnemi yaḳam yirine
Benüm ne bile nedür ḥālümi firāḳında
Ġam ile ġuṣṣa yirem her nefes ni‘am yirine
Mu‘aṭṭar eyledi āfāḳı naẓmı ‘Adlī'nüñ
Meger ki zülfin ider dil-berüñ ḳalem yirine

In English

1. If (one) were to see his face in place of the garden of Irem, if one were to hear the praise of his lips in place of the cup of Jamshid… (The couplet is elliptical; the unstated conclusion is that one would forget both the garden of Irem and Jamshid's cup and prefer the beloved's face and lip to them.)

2. Ever since the image of his lips settled in my heart, my eye has filled now with the blood of the liver instead of moisture. (The lover sheds bloody tears instead of ordinary tears.)

3. Alas, one day, from the tyranny of that king's eyes, I shall tear open my breast with my hand instead of my collar. (Tearing the collar is the familiar sign of great grief and helplessness; the lover carries it one step further.)

4. How should (he) know what my state is in his absence; with every breath I eat grief and sorrow instead of bounties. ("Ne bile" has been read as "how should he know, how could he know".)

5. Adlî's verse has filled the horizons with fragrance; it seems he uses the beloved's tress in place of a pen. (The beloved's hair is scented with musk; the fragrance of the poetry comes from this pen.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The ghazal (gazel) has five couplets and is written in the müctes metre "mefâ‘ilün fe‘ilâtün mefâ‘ilün fe‘ilün". The redif (refrain word) is "yirine" (in place of), and the rhyme rests on the sound "-em": İrem, Cem, nem, yakam, ni‘am, kalem. Because the redif does the same work in every couplet, the ghazal has a marked order; in each couplet one thing takes the place of another. The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet. It stands as no. 127 in Bayram's edition. Of the five manuscripts it is found in only two, M1 (40b) and M2 (32b); it is absent from OR, T and İBB. In M1 the words "fiġān ki" at the beginning of the third couplet are missing. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet names two famous things together. "Ravza-i İrem", in its dictionary sense, is the garden of Irem, the legendary garden likened to paradise; "câm-ı Cem", also in its dictionary sense, is the cup of Jamshid (Cem), the legendary Iranian king, in which the whole world was believed to be visible. The couplet puts the beloved's face and lip in place of these two marvels. The face corresponds to the garden and the lip to the cup; the pairing rests on familiar comparisons of divan poetry and creates a congruence of images (tenasüp) in the couplet. Both lines end with the conditional suffix "-se" and the consequence is left unsaid; the reader completes for himself in whose favour the comparison ends.

The second and third couplets carry the lover's pain into his body. When the image of the lip settles in the heart, the moisture in the eye turns to blood; "hûn-ı ciger" (blood of the liver) is, in divan poetry, the deepest pain mingled with tears. In the third couplet an established gesture of mourning, tearing the collar, becomes tearing the breast. It is noteworthy that the beloved is called "şeh" (king) here; as often in Adlî's poems, there is a king who oppresses and, facing him, a helpless lover, while the man who wrote the poem was a sultan. In the fourth couplet the idiom "gam yemek" (to eat grief, that is, to grieve) merges with the redif. The lover eats grief and sorrow instead of bounties; the link between "ni‘am" (bounties) and "eating" brings the idiom close to its literal sense as well.

The last couplet is an example of hüsn-i ta‘lîl (poetic aetiology, an imagined cause). Adlî's verse has filled the horizons with scent because the poet uses the beloved's tress in place of a pen. With its length and blackness the hair resembles a pen and ink; with its musk it lends fragrance to the poem. There is therefore a congruence of images between the word "mu‘attar" (scented) and the tress (zülf). A poet's praise of his own words is a customary attitude in the last couplet of a ghazal; here the praise, tied to the beloved's hair, returns once more to the theme of love.

Bibliography

  • Yavuz Bayram (ed.), Adlî Dîvânı (Dîvân-ı Sultân Bâyezîd-i Sânî), Ankara: Ministry of Culture and Tourism Publications, 2018, p. 165, poem no. 127 (manuscript information in the footnote on the same page).

Online sources