Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mef‘ūlü mefā‘īlü mefā‘īlü fe‘ūlün

Sünbüllerüñi sen ṣalalı verd-i ter üzre
Dāġ urdı benüm āteş-i āhum ḳamer üzre
Boyanmaz idi āteş-i āhumla felekler
Seyl-āb yaşum irmese yanmış ciger üzre
Āhum irişüp oldı feleklerde kevākib
Tīrüñ es̱eri olur iricek siper üzre
Gündüz gibi olurdı gice çeşmüme rūşen
Gerd-i rehinüñ ẕerresi irse baṣar üzre
Ḳanlu yaşumuñ dānelerin diz ki yaraşur
Simīn-bedene la‘l ü cevāhir güher üzre
Her laḫẓa gözüñ tīġ-i müjeñ çekdügi bu kim
‘Ādetdür olur düzd ü ḥarāmī çü zer üzre
Cān ḳurtarımaz olsa siper ‘Adli'ye eflāk
Tīri müjeñüñ olsa ḳażā vü ḳader üzre

In English

1. Ever since you let your hyacinth tresses fall upon the fresh rose (of your cheek), the fire of my sigh has branded the moon. (The spots on the moon are imagined as brand-wounds burnt by the fire of the lover's sigh.)

2. The heavens would not have been dyed by the fire of my sigh, had my flood of tears not reached my burnt liver. (The couplet seems to tie the redness of the sky to the union of the sigh's fire with tears that have passed over the burnt liver and become stained with blood; this is one reading.)

3. My sigh reached (the sky) and became stars in the heavens; when an arrow reaches a shield, it leaves its mark. (The sky is likened to a shield and the sighs to arrows; the stars are the holes these arrows have pierced in the shield.)

4. If a mote of the dust of your path reached my eye, night would become bright as day to my eye. (The dust of the beloved's path becomes kohl for the eye and gives it light.)

5. String the beads of my bloody tears, for rubies and jewels upon pearl befit the silver-bodied one. (The bloody tears resemble rubies; they are worthy of being strung like a necklace upon the beloved's silver-white skin.)

6. The reason your eye draws the sword of your eyelash every moment is this: it is the custom that thief and brigand are found where gold is. (The couplet ties the eye's drawing of the sword to thieves prowling around gold; what the gold stands for is not made clear in the couplet.)

7. If the arrow of your eyelash accorded with fate and destiny, the heavens could not save Adlî's life even if they became his shield.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The ghazal (gazel) has seven couplets and is written in the hezec metre "mef‘ûlü mefâ‘îlü mefâ‘îlü fe‘ûlün". The redif (refrain word) is "üzre" (upon, over), and the rhyme rests on the sound "-er": ter, kamer, ciger, siper, basar, güher, zer, kader. The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet. It stands as no. 132 in Bayram's edition. It is found in OR (31a), T (39b) and İBB (21b-22a), and is absent from M1 and M2. The number of couplets also varies among the manuscripts: the third couplet exists only in T, while the fourth is missing in T. T also reads "kemer" (belt) instead of "güher" in the fifth couplet and "hazer" (caution) instead of "çü zer" in the sixth. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The first three couplets of the ghazal turn to the sky. The lover's sigh is fire, and when it reaches the heavens it leaves its mark there. In the opening couplet the beloved has let his hyacinth-like tresses fall upon his rose-like cheek, and the sigh of the lover who sees this has branded the moon. The words sünbül (hyacinth), verd (rose), dâğ (brand) and kamer (moon) build a bridge between garden and sky. Explaining the spots on the moon by the lover's sigh is a hüsn-i ta‘lîl (poetic aetiology, an imagined cause). In the second couplet the heavens are dyed by the lover's sigh, but for this the tears must reach the burnt liver. The logic of the couplet is not wholly clear; the most reasonable reading is that the tears passing over the liver turn to blood and, together with the fire of the sigh, give the sky its red colour.

The third couplet is found only in manuscript T and completes the image of the sky. The sighs are arrows and the sky a shield; the stars are the marks the arrows have left on the shield. There is congruence of images (tenasüp) among tîr (arrow), siper (shield) and eser (mark). In the fourth couplet the dust of the beloved's path is thought of as kohl applied to the eye; even night grows bright as day. The antithesis (tezat) between night and day brings this effect forward.

The fifth couplet pairs the bloody tears with jewels. The bloody tears are like rubies (la‘l) and can be strung like a necklace fit for the "simîn-beden" (silver-bodied) beloved. There is congruence of images among the words simîn (silver), la‘l, cevâhir and güher (pearl, jewel). With T's reading "kemer" the jewels are strung upon a belt; this too suits the image of ornament.

In the sixth and seventh couplets the eyelash appears as sword and arrow. The eye draws the sword of the eyelash every moment; the poet explains this by the custom that thieves and brigands are found where gold is. Düzd (thief), harâmî (highwayman) and zer (gold) form a congruence of images. In the last couplet the lover's death seems inescapable. If the beloved's eyelash arrow accords with fate and destiny, the heavens cannot save Adlî's life even if they become his shield. The link among kazâ, kader (fate, destiny) and tîr (arrow) rests on death being seen as something foreordained. The shield of the sky that bore the marks of the arrows in the third couplet returns in the last couplet as a shield useless against the arrows of the eyelash.

Bibliography

  • Yavuz Bayram (ed.), Adlî Dîvânı (Dîvân-ı Sultân Bâyezîd-i Sânî), Ankara: Ministry of Culture and Tourism Publications, 2018, p. 170, poem no. 132 (manuscript information in the footnote on the same page).

Online sources