Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Her ḳaçan ruḫsārını ‘arż ide dil-ber gül gibi
Nāleye başlar görüp bī-çāreler bülbül gibi
Beñzerem dirseñ ṣaçına sen daḫı iy müşk-i Çīn
Yüz ḳarasın ḥāṣıl idersin ḳara sünbül gibi
Ḥüsnüñe öykünmege bedr olıcaḳ gökde ḳamer
Bir siyeh ḫalḳa aṣar ruḫsārına kākül gibi
Ḫışm ile ḫançer çeküp göñlüm sarāyına gelür
Çeşm-i ḫūn-rīzüñ içer her laḥẓa ḳanum mül gibi
Ḫāl-i müşgīnüñ hevāsıyle idüp terk-i diyār
Rūm'a geldi müşk-i Çīn sevdāyile fülfül gibi
Ḥüsn ilinüñ şāhısın ay ile gün leyl ü nehār
İzüñe yüzin sürer sen şehriyāruñ ḳul gibi
Luṭfını ‘Adlī'ye dā’im ol cefākāruñ göreñ
Ġoncaveş aġzın açup ider tebessüm gül gibi

In English

1. Whenever the beloved shows his cheek like a rose, the helpless ones, seeing it, begin to lament like nightingales.

2. O musk of China, if you too say "I resemble his hair", you will earn a blackened face, like the black hyacinth. (Musk and hyacinth alike are likened to hair for their black colour and their scent; but whoever claims to resemble the hair is shamed and his face is blackened.)

3. When the moon in the sky becomes full to imitate your beauty, it hangs a black ring on its face like a lovelock. (The dark spots on the face of the full moon are presented as an imitation of the lovelock that falls over the beloved's cheek.)

4. (Your glance) comes to the palace of my heart, drawing a dagger in wrath; your bloodshedding eye drinks my blood every moment like wine.

5. The musk of China, leaving its homeland in longing for your musky mole, has come to Rûm with sevdâ, like black pepper. ("Sevdâ" means both passion and black bile, blackness; musk, mole and black pepper are all black.)

6. You are the shah of the land of beauty; the moon and the sun, night and day, rub their faces on your footprints like servants to you, the sovereign.

7. Behold the kindness that tormentor always shows Adlî: opening his mouth like a bud, he smiles like a rose.

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 "gibi" (like), and the rhyme rests on the sound "-ül": gül, bülbül, sünbül, kâkül, mül, fülfül, kul, gül. The word "kul" in the sixth couplet matches this sound with a back vowel; the word "gül" from the opening couplet is used again as the rhyme in the last couplet. The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet. It stands as no. 140 in Bayram's edition; according to the edition it belongs to the "Harfü'l-yâ" section of the divan. According to the edition's footnote it is found in all five manuscripts (OR 34a, T 43a-43b, M1 44a, M2 34b, İBB 23b-24a), but the last couplet is absent from OR and İBB. The tables in the edition's introduction are inconsistent on this point: one table counts the ghazal among the poems common to all manuscripts, while the other lists it among the poems missing from OR. The main variants are these: T, M1 and M2 read "bî-çâre dil" instead of "bî-çâreler" in the first couplet; in the second İBB has "müşg-i Hoten" and OR "misk-i Hoten" instead of "müşk-i Çîn"; in the fifth İBB reads "hâk-i" (dust) instead of "hâl-i" (mole), and T, M1 and M2 read "ider" instead of "idüp"; in the sixth T reads "ger" instead of "gün", and OR, T, M1 and M2 read "şehriyâre" instead of "şehriyâruñ". To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

Throughout the ghazal the beloved's beauty is set above the beautiful and precious things of nature. The opening couplet sets up the motif of the rose and the nightingale directly: the beloved's cheek is the rose, and the helpless lovers who see it are nightingales. The redif "gibi" (like) brings a new comparison in every couplet, and the ghazal becomes a chain of similes.

The second, third and fifth couplets are built on the colour black. Musk and hyacinth are likened to hair; in the second couplet the musk of China is told that if it claims to resemble the hair it will earn a "yüz karası" (blackened face, that is, disgrace) like the hyacinth. The idiom "yüz karası" works here in its literal sense as well, since musk is black already. The third couplet is a hüsn-i ta‘lîl (poetic aetiology, an imagined cause): the moon becomes full to imitate the beloved's beauty and hangs a black ring on its face like a lovelock. In the fifth couplet the musk of China leaves its homeland for the sake of the beloved's musky mole and comes to Rûm like black pepper. Fülfül, in its dictionary sense, is black pepper. There is a tevriye (double entendre) in the word "sevdâ": in its dictionary sense it means both love, passion, and black bile in the old medicine, and so evokes blackness. Musk, hâl (mole), sevdâ and fülfül unite in the colour black and form a congruence of images (tenasüp). The comparison of China with Rûm says that the precious substance of the far East has migrated to the beloved's land. No conclusion about the period in which the poem was written can be drawn from the name "Rûm" in the couplet.

In the fourth couplet the beloved's eye is like an assailant. It draws a dagger in wrath, enters the palace of the heart and drinks blood like wine. There is a congruence of images among the words "hûn-rîz" (bloodshedding), "kan" (blood) and "mül" (wine); the shared colour of blood and wine is the basis of the couplet.

The sixth couplet carries the irony often found in Adlî's poems. The beloved is the shah of the land of beauty, the "şehriyâr" (sovereign); the moon and the sun, night and day, rub their faces on his footprints like servants. The expressions "ay ile gün" (moon and sun) and "leyl ü nehâr" (night and day) form an ordered leff ü neşr (parallel arrangement): the moon corresponds to night, the sun to day. In this couplet, from the pen of a real ruler, the title of sovereign is given to the beloved, while servitude is left to the greatest lights of the sky. In the last couplet the "kindness" of the tormenting beloved is to open his mouth like a bud and smile like a rose. The opening of the bud into a rose describes the passage from the beloved's closed mouth to a smile; the rose of the opening couplet returns at the end of the ghazal as a smiling face.

Bibliography

  • Yavuz Bayram (ed.), Adlî Dîvânı (Dîvân-ı Sultân Bâyezîd-i Sânî), Ankara: Ministry of Culture and Tourism Publications, 2018, p. 178, poem no. 140 (manuscript information in the footnote on the same page; for the manuscript tables, introduction, Table 3 and Table 4).

Online sources