Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Nesne yoḳ yanında dil-dāruñ dil ü cāndan ‘abes̱
‘Āşıḳa nesne görinmez derd-i hicrāndan ‘abes̱
Nālemi işitmeyüp zāġ-ı raḳībi gūş ider
Ol güle gelmez belī murġ-ı suḫan-dāndan ‘abes̱
Zāhid-i rūbāh baḳmaz rūy-ı yāre nitekim
Düzd olana nesne gelmez māh-ı tābāndan ‘abes̱
Ululanup seg raḳīb itmez naẓar ‘āşıḳlara
‘Āşıḳa sorsañ cihānda nesne yoḳ andan ‘abes̱
‘Adliyā vaṣl isteme hicrānda cān vir gelmeye
Derd ile ḫūy eyleyene nesne dermāndan ‘abes̱

In English

1. In the beloved's presence nothing is more worthless, more futile, than heart and soul; and to the lover nothing seems more senseless than the pain of separation.

2. That rose (the beloved) does not hear my lament but listens to the crow of a rival; indeed, nothing is more tiresome to that rose than the bird skilled in speech (the nightingale, that is, the lover-poet).

3. The fox-like ascetic does not look upon the beloved's face, just as to a thief nothing is more unwelcome than the shining moon. (The thief shuns the light; the ascetic turns away from the light of beauty.)

4. The dog of a rival puffs himself up and will not even look at lovers; ask the lover, and there is nothing in the world more futile than he.

5. O Adlî, do not ask for union; give up your soul in separation; to one grown used to pain nothing is more senseless than a cure. The word "gelmeye" at the end of the first line can be understood in two ways: "give up your soul in separation even if union does not come", or "give up your soul in separation so that she may come".

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a ghazal (gazel) of five couplets. Its metre is the remel pattern of aruz (quantitative metre), "fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün". The redif (refrain word) is "-dan ‘abes̱", and the rhyme is the "-ān" sound of "cān, hicrān, suḫan-dān, tābān, andan, dermān". "‘Abes̱" is an Arabic word meaning "vain, out of place, useless, senseless". The ghazal is number 13 in Bayram's edition and stands in the section of the divan given to ghazals ending in the letter se (s̱) (Ḥarfü's̱-s̱ā’); s̱, the last letter of the redif, is the lisped "se" of the Arabic alphabet. It is found in the OR, T, M1 and M2 manuscripts and is absent from İBB; the fourth couplet is missing from T. It is not known to whom or when it was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

In every couplet of the ghazal the line carrying the redif rests on the same sentence pattern: "there is nothing more ‘abes̱ than X". In each couplet this pattern declares something or someone worthless and turns the ghazal into a series of sharp verdicts. In the first couplet heart and soul are worthless in the beloved's presence; that is, the lover's most precious possessions count for nothing before her. In the same couplet the pain of separation also seems to the lover the most senseless thing of all. The opening couplet is thus built on the contrast between being near the beloved and being far from her.

A striking feature of the ghazal is that it describes the people around the lover through animal images. In the second couplet the rival is a crow (zāġ); the lover is "murġ-ı suḫan-dān", the bird skilled in speech, with a beautiful tongue. Because it is mentioned together with the rose, this bird is the nightingale, and in divan poetry the nightingale stands for the lover, especially the lover who is a poet. That the rose, that is the beloved, does not listen to the nightingale but lends her ear to the crow is a complaint about beauty's failure to recognise worth; there is a clear contrast between the crow's ugly voice and the nightingale's lovely song. In the third couplet the ascetic (zahid), the pious man who cares for outward appearance, is likened to a fox. The fox is the symbol of cunning and implies that the ascetic's piety is mere show. In the fourth couplet the rival becomes a dog and, puffing himself up, will not look at the lovers. Crow, fox and dog stand on one side, the bird skilled in speech on the other.

The third couplet carries the finest comparison in the ghazal. The ascetic's refusal to look at the beloved's face is likened to a thief's dislike of the shining moon. In divan poetry the beloved's face is likened to the moon; the thief, for his part, shuns brightness at night, because light gives him away. The couplet joins these two facts and reduces the ascetic to a thief fleeing from beauty. Supporting a judgement made in the first line with an example known to all in the second is called irsâl-i mesel in divan poetry; the word "nitekim" (just as) makes this link explicit.

The pen name appears in the last couplet, and the pattern of the ghazal is turned around. The lover is not on the side of the cure; to one grown used to pain, a cure too is ‘abes̱. The lover does not want union and chooses to give up his soul in separation. The word "gelmeye" can be understood in two ways. In the first reading the lover is willing to give up his soul in separation even if union does not come; in the second he gives up his soul for the sake of the beloved's coming. Both readings agree with the command "vaṣl isteme" (do not ask for union), but the first is closer to the idea, in the last line, of growing used to pain.

There is little manuscript variation: "dil-dāruñ" (of the beloved) in the first couplet appears in T as "dil-dārın".

Bibliography

  • Yavuz Bayram (ed.), Adlî Dîvânı (Dîvân-ı Sultân Bâyezîd-i Sânî), Ankara: Ministry of Culture and Tourism Publications, 2018, p. 51, poem no. 13; manuscript variants in the footnotes on the same page.

Online sources