Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Her dilde ki dāġ-ı ġam-ı ‘ışḳuñ es̱eri var
Āh itse n'ola derd ile yanmış cigeri var
Ḳaşına gözi ġamz ider iy dil ḥaẕer it kim
Ol egriye bu fitnenüñ egri ḫaberi var
Sen mehde tamām olduġına āyet-i ḥüsnüñ
Ḥuccet ḫaṭuñı göster aña kim naẓarı var
Tā ṣubḥa degin yummasa göz ṭañ mı kevākib
Āhumla felek yana diyüben ḥaẕeri var
Feryādına nālān oluban idemedi ney
Bilinde niçe gerçi ki ġayret kemeri var
İy dil ḥaẕer it dām-ı ser-i zülfine düşme
Çoḳ başlu durur kim bile ne fitneleri var
Hicrinde göñül oldı yüzi nūrına nevmīd
Ġam gicesinüñ ṣanma ki āḫir seḥeri var
‘Adlī'ye teraḥḥum demidür eyleseñ iy dōst
Cān geldi lebe şimdi żarūrī seferi var

In English

1. Whatever heart bears the scar left by the sorrow of your love, is it any wonder if it sighs? It has a liver (ciğer) burned with pain.

2. Your eye winks and signals to your brow; O heart, beware. That crooked brow has crooked news of this mischief. (That is, brow and eye are plotting together against the lover. With the reading "uğrı" in T, M1 and M2: that crooked one has stealthy, thievish knowledge of this mischief.)

3. As proof that the verse of your beauty has been completed in the moon (that your face has reached perfection like the full moon), show the down on your cheek to whoever has eyes to see. (Hat means both "writing" and "the down on the cheek"; proof is shown in writing. Because "mehd" also means "cradle", the couplet can also be read as "the verse of your beauty was already complete in the cradle".)

4. Is it any wonder if the stars do not close their eyes until morning? They fear that "he will burn the heavens with his sighs".

5. The reed flute (ney) joined his cry with its moaning but could not keep up with him; and yet many a belt of zeal is bound about its waist. (The knots along the body of the reed are likened to belts tied around the waist.)

6. O heart, beware, do not fall into the snare at the end of the beloved's curls; they are many-headed, who knows what mischief they hold.

7. In separation from you the heart has lost hope of the light of your face; do not think the night of sorrow has a dawn at its end.

8. O friend, now is the very moment to show pity to Adlî; his soul has come to his lips, and now he has a journey he cannot avoid. (For the soul to come to the lips means to be on the point of death.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This is a ghazal (gazel) given in the edition with eight couplets. The redif (refrain word) is "var" (there is, has), and the rhyme is the sound "-eri": eseri, cigeri, haberi, nazarı, hazeri, kemeri, fitneleri, seheri, seferi. The metre is the hezec pattern "mef‘ûlü mefâ‘îlü mefâ‘îlü fe‘ûlün". The ghazal is found in the OR, T, M1 and M2 manuscripts and not in İBB; but it is not of the same length in all of them. According to Yavuz Bayram's footnotes, M1 and M2 contain only the first four couplets. T lacks the fifth couplet, and its sixth couplet stands in seventh place. The eight-couplet form is found only in the OR manuscript, and the fifth couplet occurs in this manuscript alone. To whom and when it was written is not known.

The first four couplets also show variants. T has "dilde" in place of "dilde ki" in the first line; T, M1 and M2 have "uğrı" (thief) in place of "egri" (crooked) in the second couplet. The third couplet has more variants: T has "hüsnüñde" in place of "sen mehde" and "hûbı" in place of "hüsnüñ"; M1 and M2 have "yüzüñde" in place of "sen mehde" and "âyeti" in place of "âyet-i". These variants show that the meaning of the couplet changes from manuscript to manuscript.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The main subject of the ghazal is the pain of love and the danger born of the beloved's beauty. In the second and sixth couplets the poet twice addresses his heart with "ey dil, hazer it", "O heart, beware". In the second couplet eye and brow are like two tricksters in league with each other: the eye signals to the brow, and the crooked brow knows of the mischief. It is notable that the word "egri" is used twice in the same line, so as to describe both the shape of the brow and the untruthfulness of the news. In the sixth couplet the curls are "çok başlu", many-headed; the many ends of the hair turn into a creature able to stir up many kinds of mischief, and together with the snare (dâm) they complete the motif of the beloved as hunter.

The third couplet is built from religious vocabulary. The words âyet (verse of scripture), hüccet (proof) and hat (writing) carry the idea of beauty being read like a verse in a book. Because "hat" means both writing and the down on the face, there is a tevriye (double entendre): the beloved proves that his beauty is complete by showing his "hat" as evidence. Because the word "mehde" in the text can be read as "in the moon" or "in the cradle", and because of the manuscript variants, the couplet cannot be tied to one definite meaning.

The fourth couplet contains a hüsn-i ta‘lîl (fanciful aetiology): the stars shining all night without closing their eyes is attributed to their fear that the lover's sighs will set the sky on fire. In the fifth couplet the reed flute is a companion trying to accompany the lover's cry; the knots along the body of the reed are imagined as "belts of zeal" tied at the waist. In the seventh couplet night and dawn, darkness and the light of the face are set against each other, and the lover says that the night of sorrow has no morning. In the last couplet the idiom "cân lebe geldi" (the soul has come to the lips) expresses the approach of death; the "zarûrî sefer", the unavoidable journey, is the journey of death. At this last moment Adlî looks to his friend for mercy.

Bibliography

  • Yavuz Bayram (ed.), Adlî Dîvânı (Dîvân-ı Sultân Bâyezîd-i Sânî), Ankara: Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yay., 2018, p. 58, poem no. 20 (manuscript variants and the distribution of the couplets among the manuscripts in the footnotes on p. 58). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr