Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

‘Ārıżuñ vireli Mūṣā'ya yed-i Beyżā'yı
Ḳıldı ta‘līm Mesīḥāya lebüñ iḥyāyı
Çünki dünyā gibi yüz ṭuta cefāya dil-ber
Ḫarc idüñ var ise elde yolına dünyāyı
Gerden-i cāna çekelden ser-i zülfüñ bendi
Ṣaldı dil kişverine ḫūni gözüñ yaġmayı
Çünki sen gevher-i nā-yāba elüm irişemez
N'ola gözden çıḳarursam bu yedi deryāyı
Şol ki müstaġni durur derdüñ ile dermāndan
Kimse ögretmez aña ‘ālem-i istiġnāyı
‘Adli gibi şeh olan işigüñi terk idüben
Başına aldı ‘abes̱ yire ḳuru ġavġāyı

In English

1. Ever since your cheek gave Moses the miracle of the "white hand", your lip has taught the Messiah (Jesus) how to raise the dead. (The shining white appearance of the hand Moses put into his bosom and drew out is the miracle of "yed-i beyzâ"; Jesus' raising of the dead with his breath is associated with lip and speech.)

2. Since the beloved, like the world, turns her face towards cruelty, spend in her path whatever world you have in hand.

3. Ever since the tip of your lock threw its bond around the neck of the soul, your bloodthirsty eye has let loose plunder on the land of the heart. (The hair is a rope that binds captives, and the eye a raider who plunders the land.)

4. Since you are a pearl beyond finding and my hand cannot reach you, what wonder if I pour these seven seas out of my eyes. ("Gözden çıkarmak" means both to shed from the eyes and to give something up; the lover who cannot find the pearl either sheds the seas that hide pearls as tears or gives them up.)

5. No one need teach the meaning of contentment to one who, thanks to your pain, has no need of a cure; he knows it already.

6. Whoever, being a shah like Adlî, leaves your threshold has taken upon his head an empty quarrel for nothing. (The couplet can be read in two ways: the one who leaves the threshold is any shah resembling Adlî; or Adlî himself, though a shah, has left the threshold and thrown himself into an empty quarrel.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The ghazal (gazel) has six couplets and is written in the remel metre "fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilün". The rhyme rests on the sound "-â", and the redif (refrain word) on the accusative suffix "-yı": Beyzâ'yı, ihyâyı, dünyâyı, yağmayı, deryâyı, istiğnâyı, gavgâyı. The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet. It stands as no. 143 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 (32a), T (41a) and İBB (22b), and is absent from M1 and M2. The fourth couplet is missing from OR; in the same couplet İBB reads "irişmez dōstum" instead of "elüm irişemez". The footnote also has the entry "7a idüben] ideyin İBB", but the ghazal has six couplets and the word "idüben" occurs in the first line of the sixth couplet; the entry must therefore belong to the sixth couplet. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet alludes (telmih) to two prophetic miracles. Yed-i beyzâ means "white hand" in its dictionary sense and is the name of the miracle of Moses' hand shining brilliant white; the poet says that this light comes from the beloved's cheek. Jesus' healing of the sick and raising of the dead (ihyâ) with his breath is among his attributes most often mentioned in divan poetry, and, as shown in the literature section of the article "Îsâ" in the TDV Encyclopaedia of Islam, this quality is often transferred to the beloved's lip, breath and speech. Adlî follows the same path: it is the beloved's lip that teaches the Messiah to raise the dead. The couplet can also be read as a poetic aetiology (hüsn-i ta‘lîl): the true source of the two great miracles is the beloved's beauty. There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) between "Mûsâ" and "Mesîhâ", and between "yed" (hand), "leb" (lip) and "‘ârız" (cheek).

In the second couplet the word "dünyâ" (world) occurs twice, at the beginning of the line and at the end of the couplet. In the first instance the world is the model of faithlessness: the beloved, like the world, turns her face to cruelty. In the second, the world is wealth to be spent in the beloved's path. Since the beloved shares the world's nature, the world itself must be sacrificed to her. In the third couplet images of war and captivity come to the fore: the tip of the lock throws a bond around the neck of the soul, and the bloodthirsty eye has the land of the heart plundered. The words "gerden" (neck), "bend" (bond), "kişver" (land) and "yağma" (plunder) form a congruence of images.

The fourth couplet is built on the relation between pearl and sea. The beloved is a pearl beyond finding ("gevher-i nâ-yâb"); the lover's hand cannot reach it. The lover therefore pours the seven seas out of his eyes. "Gözden çıkarmak" is a double entendre (tevriye): both meanings, to shed as tears and to give up or sacrifice, work in the couplet. In its dictionary sense, the seven seas is an expression used for all the seas that surround the world. In the fifth couplet "müstağnî" (self-sufficient) and "istiğnâ" (contentment) come from the same root, while "dert" (pain) and "derman" (cure) form an antithesis. For the lover the pain given by the beloved is enough and he needs no cure; there is no need to teach such a person what contentment is.

In the last couplet the poet calls himself "şeh" (shah). Coming together with the pen name, this epithet is a direct reference to his real sovereignty. Yet what the couplet says is that a shah who abandons the beloved's threshold has needlessly brought an empty quarrel upon his head. Sovereignty carries no value compared with the beloved's threshold; leaving the threshold is a loss even for a shah. The phrase "ḳuru ġavġā" means, in its dictionary sense, a fruitless, empty dispute.

Bibliography

  • Yavuz Bayram (ed.), Adlî Dîvânı (Dîvân-ı Sultân Bâyezîd-i Sânî), Ankara: Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yay., 2018, p. 181, poem no. 143 (manuscript information in the footnote on the same page). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr
  • Mustafa İsmet Uzun, "Îsâ (Türk Edebiyatı)", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 22, İstanbul 2000, pp. 473-475, https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/isa.

Online sources