Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Yüzüñ gülzārı şevḳınden göñül murġı gelür zāre
Anuñçün gül yüzüñ yādına eyler meyl gülzāre
Egerçi mihr-i ‘ālem-tāba beñzer ol ḳamer līkin
Cefā vü cevr ḳılmaḳda müşābih çerḫ-i devvāre
Yüregi yarılup yaşı revān olaydı her sūya
Ṣadā-yı nāle vü āhum eger irişse kühsāre
Mizācuñdan yübūsetle ṣudā‘uñ def‘in iderdüñ
Yoluñ uġrasa bir gün zāhidā ger kūy-ı ḫammāre
Er iseñ zīnetine dünyenüñ meyl eyleme zinhār
Ṣaḳın aldamasun ‘Adlī seni bu Zāl ü mekkāre

In English

1. Out of longing for the rose garden of your face, the bird of the heart begins to lament; that is why it turns to the rose garden, to remember your rose face.

2. Although that moon-faced one resembles the world-illuminating sun, in inflicting cruelty and oppression he resembles the ever-turning heavens.

3. If the sound of my moaning and sighing reached the mountains, their heart would split and their tears would flow in every direction. (The waters running down from the mountains are imagined as the tears of mountains unable to bear the lover's lament.)

4. O ascetic, if your path one day led to the wine-seller's street, you would rid your temperament of its dryness and of your headache too. ("Yübûset", in its dictionary sense, is dryness, and "sudâ‘" headache. The ascetic's dry, rigid piety is likened to a dryness of temperament; in the couplet its cure is the tavern.)

5. Adlî, if you are a man, never incline to the adornments of the world; beware lest this old and deceitful woman deceive you. (The world is likened to an old and deceitful woman who appears to the young in finery.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The ghazal (gazel) has five couplets and is written in the hezec metre "mefâ‘îlün mefâ‘îlün mefâ‘îlün mefâ‘îlün". The rhyme rests on the sound "-âr" and the redif (refrain word) on the dative suffix (-e): zâre, gülzâre, devvâre, kühsâre, hammâre, mekkâre. The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet. It stands as no. 131 in Bayram's edition. It is found in OR (30a), T (39b-40a) and İBB (21a), and is absent from M1 and M2. The only manuscript variant recorded in the edition is in the second couplet: İBB reads "gaddâre" (cruel, treacherous) instead of "devvâre" (turning). To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal begins with love, passes through a couplet teasing the ascetic and closes with counsel against the world. The opening couplet contains the rose and nightingale motif. The heart is a bird and the beloved's face a rose garden; because the bird longs for this garden, it goes to the real rose garden, since the roses there remind it of the beloved's face. The repetition of the word "gülzâr" (rose garden) inside the first line and in rhyme position in the second, together with the closeness in sound between "zâr" (lament) and "gülzâr", gives the couplet a harmony.

In the second couplet the beloved is compared with two heavenly bodies. He is moon-faced and with his brightness resembles the sun; in inflicting pain, however, he resembles the heavens. There is congruence of images (tenasüp) among the words mihr (sun), kamer (moon) and çerh (the wheel of heaven). That the heavens turn ceaselessly and torment people is a familiar idea in divan poetry; the beloved is likened to the lights of the sky in his beauty and to the sky itself in his cruelty. İBB's reading "gaddâre" says the same thing more openly.

The third couplet is a hüsn-i ta‘lîl (poetic aetiology, an imagined cause) and a hyperbole (mübalağa). The waters that run in every direction from the mountains are explained as the tears of mountains whose heart splits on hearing the lover's moaning. "Heart" with "splitting" and "tears" with "flowing" suit the rocks and springs of the mountain. In the fourth couplet the tone changes and the poet teases the ascetic (zâhid). "Yübûset", in its dictionary sense, means dryness and "sudâ‘" headache; both are terms of the old medicine and rest on the idea that a dry temperament causes headache. Dryness also describes the ascetic's rigid and joyless piety. The ascetic who calls at the wine-seller's will be rid both of this dryness and of his headache. The use of medical terms in a criticism of piety lends the couplet a light mockery.

The last couplet counsels against being taken in by the adornments of the world. "Zâl", in its dictionary sense, means an old person whose hair has turned white, and "mekkâre" a deceitful woman. The world is conceived as a woman who adorns and displays herself but is in truth old and deceptive. The contrast between "er" (a brave man, a man) and this old woman strengthens the counsel. That a ruler possessing all the bounties of the world gives himself this counsel lends the couplet a particular weight as a word of wisdom from a sultan's pen.

Bibliography

  • Yavuz Bayram (ed.), Adlî Dîvânı (Dîvân-ı Sultân Bâyezîd-i Sânî), Ankara: Ministry of Culture and Tourism Publications, 2018, p. 169, poem no. 131 (manuscript information in the footnote on the same page).

Online sources