Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Ḫışm idüp çeşmüñ urur baġruma yare çāre ne
Ġamzeñüñ tīġi ider dil pāre pāre çāre ne
Ḥüsnüñüñ gülzārını yād eyleyüp iy murġ-ı dil
Āh u zārı ḳılmasañ ol gül-‘iẕāra çāre ne
Göñlümi zülfinde buldı şeb-rev olmuşsun diyü
Baġladı miskīn resen aṣmaġa dāra çāre ne
Bülbül-i bī-çāre dir her dem lisān-ı ḥāl ile
Bir nefes gülden ıraġ olmaġa ḫāra çāre ne
Her gice nālem maḥallüñ ḫalḳı işidüp benüm
İncinüp dirler ‘aceb bu āh u zāra çāre ne
Āteş-i āhum benüm her dem irer ḳılmaz es̱er
Göñlidür ol dil-berüñ çün seng-i ḫāra çāre ne
Va‘desine ol cefā-kār eyledi çünkim ḫilāf
‘Adli ṣabr itmek gerek bu intiẓāra çāre ne

In English

1. Your eye, in anger, strikes a wound into my breast: what remedy is there? The sword of your sidelong glance cuts the heart to pieces: what remedy is there?

2. O bird of the heart, when you remember the rose garden of (the beloved's) beauty, what else can you do but sigh and wail to that rose-cheeked one? (The bird of the heart, that is, the lover's heart, is like the nightingale moaning for the rose; it has no other course but to lament.)

3. (The beloved) found my heart in his tress and, saying "you have turned night thief", bound the poor wretch with a rope to hang it on the gallows: what remedy is there? (The hair is both the darkness of night and a rope or noose.)

4. The helpless nightingale says at every moment, with the tongue of its state: what remedy is there for the thorn to keep away from the rose even for a breath? (The nightingale is parted from the rose, while the thorn never leaves it. The line can also be understood as "what remedy is there against the thorn that never leaves it".)

5. Every night the people of the quarter hear my moaning and, disturbed, say: "How strange; what remedy can be found for this sighing and wailing?"

6. The fire of my sigh reaches (the beloved) at every moment, but leaves no mark; since that heart-ravisher's heart is hard rock, what remedy is there?

7. Since that cruel one has broken his promise, Adlî, one must be patient; what other remedy is there for this waiting?

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The ghazal (gazel) has seven couplets and is written in the remel metre "fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilün". The redif (refrain word) is the phrase "çâre ne" (what remedy, what can be done); the rhyme rests on the sound "-âr": yare, pâre, ‘izâra, dâra, hâra, zâra, hâra, intizâra. In the opening couplet both lines end with the redif, and "yare" inside the first line and "pâre pâre" in the second also lean on each other in sound. The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet. It stands as no. 128 in Bayram's edition and is found in all five manuscripts (OR 31a, T 38b-39a, M1 40b, M2 32b, İBB 21b). The sixth and seventh couplets are missing in M1; for the word "hüsnüñüñ" in the second couplet the edition's footnote records a small spelling difference between OR and the other manuscripts ("hüsnünüñ/hüsnüñüñ"). To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The governing feeling of the ghazal is helplessness, and the redif makes it be spoken again in every couplet. In the opening couplet the beloved's eye opens a wound in anger and his glance cuts the heart to pieces like a sword. There is congruence of images (tenasüp) among eye, gamze, tîğ (sword) and wound. "Gamze", in its dictionary sense, is the look from the corner of the eye, the languid glance; in divan poetry it is spoken of like a deadly weapon.

The second and fourth couplets treat the rose and nightingale motif from two different sides. In the second couplet the lover's heart is a bird and, as it recalls the beloved's face like a rose garden, it has no course but to moan to him. In the fourth couplet the nightingale itself speaks, though not in words but with "lisân-ı hâl", the tongue of its state, what its condition expresses. The adjective "bî-çâre" (helpless, literally without remedy) makes a play on words with "çâre" in the redif. While the nightingale burns apart from the rose, the thorn does not leave the foot of the rose for a moment; the thorn in the couplet therefore calls to mind the rival who never leaves the beloved's side. This last reading is not stated openly in the couplet; it rests on the general use of the motif.

The third couplet is built like a story. The heart has been caught in the beloved's tress; because the hair is dark as night, the heart found there is taken for a night thief (şeb-rev) and is bound, with a rope also made of hair, to be hanged on the gallows. There is a strong congruence of images among the words zülf (tress), şeb-rev, resen (rope) and dâr (gallows). In the fifth couplet the lover's moaning is loud enough to disturb the neighbourhood; this is a hyperbole (mübalağa) and tells, through an everyday scene, how love cannot be hidden.

In the sixth couplet "seng-i hâra", in its dictionary sense, means hard stone, granite. "Hâra" in the fourth couplet, however, is the dative of "hâr" (thorn). Because the same sound is repeated in rhyme position with two different meanings, there is a pun (cinas) here. The fire of the sigh does not penetrate the stone; the contrast between fire and stone shows the beloved's hardness. In the last couplet Adlî counsels himself to patience. The beloved has not kept his promise, and the waiting has no remedy other than patience.

Bibliography

  • Yavuz Bayram (ed.), Adlî Dîvânı (Dîvân-ı Sultân Bâyezîd-i Sânî), Ankara: Ministry of Culture and Tourism Publications, 2018, p. 166, poem no. 128 (manuscript information in the footnote on the same page).

Online sources