Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilün

Devlet ü baḫt u sa‘ādet bize çün yār oldı
Nerd-i ġamda dil-i bed-ḫᵛāhuñ işi zār oldı
Şol şehinşehligi erzāni ḳılupdur bize Ḥaḳ
Ki cihān şehlerine bende dimek ‘ār oldı
Dīn-i İslām'umuzuñ şem‘-i şeb-efrūzı daḫı
Ehl-i küfrüñ yüregi yaġıle yanar oldı
Ḳara Boġdān gözine ‘ālemi tā tār itdüm
Emrüme tābi‘ olan server-i Tātār oldı
‘Adliyā her ne murāduñ var ise virdi Ḫudā
Ārzū dilde hemīn vuṣlat-ı dil-dār oldı

In English

1. Since state, fortune and felicity have become our friends, in the backgammon of grief the ill-wisher's heart has come to a wretched pass. (Nerd is backgammon; "zâr" means both moaning, wretched, and the dice thrown in backgammon.)

2. God has granted us such an emperorship that it has become a shame for us even to call the kings of the world "our servants". (That is, those kings have fallen too low even to be named servants. The line can also be read as the kings finding it shameful to be called "servant"; the first reading suits the boastful tone of the couplet better.)

3. With the oil of the night-illuminating candle of our faith of Islam, the heart of the people of unbelief now burns too. (A candle burns on its oil; the same oil becomes a fire that burns the hearts of the unbelievers.)

4. I made the world utterly dark in the eyes of Kara Boğdan; the chief of the Tatars has become obedient to my command. (Kara Boğdan is the name used in Ottoman sources for the principality of Moldavia, in the lands of present-day Moldova.)

5. O Adlî, God has granted whatever wish you had; the only desire left in the heart is union with the beloved.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The ghazal (gazel) has five couplets and is written in the remel metre "fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilün". The redif (refrain word) is "oldı" (became), and the rhyme rests on the sound "-âr": yâr, zâr, ‘âr, târ, dil-dâr. The word "yanar" in the third couplet joins the rhyme with a short vowel. In the fourth couplet the rhyme is built on a pun (cinas): "tā tār" (utterly dark) and "Tātār" carry the same sounds but different meanings. The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet in the vocative "‘Adliyā" (O Adlî). It stands as no. 141 in Bayram's edition, among the ghazals of the divan ending in the letter yâ. According to the edition's footnote it is found in the manuscripts OR (31b), T (40b), M2 (34b-35a) and İBB (22a), and is absent from M1. In several places the variants change the meaning: in the first couplet M2 reads "nār-ı" (the fire of) instead of "nerd-i" (the backgammon of), and in the second "şehenşeh-laḳab" instead of "şehenşehligi"; in the third OR and İBB read "yaġıyile nār" instead of "yaġıle yanar"; in the fourth İBB reads "yüzine" instead of "gözine" and "tār itdüm ben" instead of "tā tār itdüm", while OR lacks "tā"; in the same couplet M2 reads "ṣoñra da" and OR and İBB "sırf" instead of "server-i"; in the last couplet İBB reads "hemān" instead of "hemīn".

Meaning and Figures of Speech

Most of the divan deals with the beauty of the beloved and the helplessness of the lover, but the first four couplets of this ghazal are a ruler's boast. Bayram links the absence of even a single kaside (qasida) in the classical sense from the divan to the poet's identity as sultan, and notes that Adlî's poems contain more than forty couplets pointing to his sovereignty, which may be counted among the important proofs that the poems belong to Bayezid II. This ghazal is one of the clearest examples of those couplets: state, fortune and felicity becoming "friends", the emperorship granted by God, the supremacy of Islam over unbelief and the Tatar chief bowing to command are all parts of a language of sovereignty.

The opening couplet is built on an image from a game. Nerd is, in its dictionary sense, backgammon; because "zâr" means both moaning, wretched, and the dice thrown in backgammon, a double entendre (tevriye) arises. Fortune and state becoming friends is like the dice turning in someone's favour; the ill-wishing rival's "affair becomes zâr", that is, he both loses the game and begins to moan. In the second couplet there is a congruence of images (tenasüp) between "şehinşeh" (emperor), "cihân şehleri" (kings of the world) and "bende" (servant). In the third couplet Islam is imagined as a candle that lights up the night; the candle's oil burns the hearts of the people of unbelief. In its dictionary sense the word "yağı" means enemy in old Turkish; the couplet may also evoke this second meaning, but the edition offers no comment to that effect. The reading "yaġıyile nār" in OR and İBB makes the image of fire more pronounced.

In the fourth couplet there is a congruence of colour between the epithet "Kara" (black) and "târ" (dark): the world has been darkened in the eyes of a country whose very name is already "black". The idiom "to make the world dark in someone's eyes" means, in its dictionary sense, to leave someone helpless and hopeless. The last couplet returns the ghazal to its familiar ground. God has given the poet every wish; the only desire left is union with the beloved. Thus, after four couplets full of conquest, the poem says that all that power has not met the heart's true wish. The servant-and-sultan irony common in the divan's other ghazals is built here from the opposite direction. For four couplets the poet speaks as a real ruler, and only in the last line does he take on the identity of the lover bound to the beloved.

Historical Context

Neither the edition nor any other source gives information on to whom or when the ghazal was written. The names in the fourth couplet, however, coincide with a known event of Bayezid II's reign. When Stefan, voivode of Moldavia, attacked Bulgaria and pirates based at the mouth of the Danube harmed the Ottoman fleet, Bayezid set out in person on the Moldavian campaign in 1484; the fortresses of Kili (15 July 1484) and Akkirman (4 August) were taken, and Stefan was bound to an annual tribute. According to Bayram's chronology the Crimean army fought alongside the Ottoman army in this campaign; the TDV Encyclopaedia of Islam (Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslâm Ansiklopedisi) also records that Crimean forces took the region of Bessarabia during the campaign. As Bayram notes, this conquest was also reflected in a kaside by Necâtî, the poet of the period, in the line "Kili ile Kara Buğdan'dan Akkerman'ı". It is reasonable to connect the lines "Kara Boğdan gözine ‘âlemi tâ târ itdüm" and "Emrüme tâbi‘ olan server-i Tâtâr oldı" to this campaign, but this is an interpretation; there is no record that fixes the date of the poem. The fact that M2, OR and İBB read other words instead of "server-i" also shows that the reference to the Tatar chief is not equally explicit in all manuscripts.

Bibliography

  • Yavuz Bayram (ed.), Adlî Dîvânı (Dîvân-ı Sultân Bâyezîd-i Sânî), Ankara: Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yay., 2018, p. 179, poem no. 141 (manuscript information in the footnote on the same page; for the couplets pointing to his sovereignty, introduction p. 13; for Necâtî's kaside, introduction p. 22, footnote 93; for the 1484 campaign, chronology p. 189). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr
  • Şerafettin Turan, "Bayezid II", Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 5, İstanbul 1992, https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/bayezid-ii

Online sources