Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Dürc-i la‘lüñi senüñ ḥoḳḳa-i cān eylediler
Ḫaste dillere devā anda nihān eylediler
İy ḳamer-çehre melek-ṣūret-i insānda seni
Ḥüsn-i taṣvīr idüben rūḥ-ı revān eylediler
Ḥüsn ile Yūsuf eger old'ise sulṭān-ı Mıṣr
Bu güzellikle seni şāh-ı cihān eylediler
Her leṭāfet ki ezel ḳısmet idi ḫūblara
Cümlesin cem‘ idüben sende ‘ayān eylediler
Her ne ḳaṣd itdiyise ‘āşıḳa ḫışm ile gözüñ
Ġamze-i tīġi çeküp anı hemān eylediler
Ḥasret-i la‘lüñ içün gözlerümüñ ḳanlu yaşı
Dökilüp yiryüzini ṭopṭolı ḳan eylediler
Zülfüñi şem‘-i ruḫuñ üzre görenler didiler
‘Adli'nüñ dūd-ı dilin aña duḫān eylediler

In English

1. They made the jewel casket of your ruby lip into the medicine box of the soul; within it they hid the cure for sick hearts. (The lip and the small mouth are likened to a little box in which medicine or ointment is kept.)

2. O moon-faced one, angel in human form, they painted you with beauty and made you a living soul. (A picture is lifeless; the beloved is a painted beauty brought to life. The "they" who made the beloved are the creative power or destiny left unnamed in the couplet.)

3. If Joseph became sultan of Egypt through his beauty, with this beauty they made you king of the whole world.

4. Every grace and charm that was allotted in pre-eternity to the beautiful, they gathered all together and displayed openly in you.

5. Whatever your eye intended in its anger against the lover, they drew the sword of the glance and carried it out at once.

6. In longing for your ruby lip the bloody tears of my eyes poured out and made the face of the earth all one flood of blood. (The T manuscript reads "of his eyes".)

7. Those who saw your curls upon the candle of your cheek said: they have made the smoke of Adlî's heart into its soot. (The cheek is a burning candle and the black curls lying on it the candle's smoke; this smoke in fact rises from the lover's burning heart.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This is a ghazal (gazel) of seven couplets. It is written in the remel pattern "fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilün". The redif (refrain word) is "eylediler" (they made), and the rhyme is the sound "-ân": cân, nihân, revân, cihân, ayân, hemân, kan, duhân. The ghazal is found in only two manuscripts, OR and T; it is not in İBB, M1 or M2. According to Yavuz Bayram's footnotes the third couplet is missing from the OR manuscript, so the seven-couplet form rests on T; in the sixth couplet T also reads "gözlerinüñ" in place of "gözlerümüñ". To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal tells of the beloved's beauty as though it were a story of creation. The subject of the verb in the redif, "eylediler" (they made), is never named in any couplet; the power or destiny that created the beloved and bestowed beauty on the beloved is referred to by this indefinite "they". This manner of speaking presents the beloved's beauty as a share allotted in pre-eternity, not something in the beloved's own hands. The phrase "ezel kısmeti" (the portion of pre-eternity) in the fourth couplet puts the idea openly: all the graces distributed to the beautiful in pre-eternity are gathered in the beloved.

In the first couplet the lip is a "dürc" (jewel casket) and a "hokka". A hokka is a small box in which ointment and medicine are also kept. The ruby lip is therefore both a jewel casket, for its redness and its value, and a medicine box that holds healing for sick hearts. There is tenasüp (congruence of images) among the words dürc, la‘l (ruby), hokka, deva (remedy) and haste (sick). In the second couplet the beloved is "angel-formed" and "moon-faced"; to say that they "painted him beautifully" and gave him a soul links the art of painting with creation.

The third couplet rests on a telmih (allusion): the story of the prophet Joseph, who rose to high rank in Egypt through his beauty. If Joseph became sultan of Egypt through his beauty, the beloved has been made king of the whole world by this beauty. It is worth noting that this couplet comes from the pen of a sultan: in the poem the title "şâh-ı cihân" (king of the world) is given not to the poet himself but to the beloved. This couplet is missing from the OR manuscript.

In the fifth couplet the eye and the gamze (sidelong glance) are imagined as two separate beings: the eye intends in anger to do something to the lover, and the glance draws its sword and carries it out at once. The sixth couplet contains mübalağa (hyperbole): the lover's bloody tears drown the earth in blood. In the couplet with the pen name (mahlas) the cheek is a candle, and the black curls lying on it are the candle's smoke. The poet says this smoke is the smoke rising from his burning heart; "dûd" and "duhân", both meaning smoke, are used together as two words of the same sense. In this way a part of the beloved's beauty is reckoned to be born of the lover's pain; this is a hüsn-i ta‘lîl (fanciful aetiology).

Bibliography

  • Yavuz Bayram (ed.), Adlî Dîvânı (Dîvân-ı Sultân Bâyezîd-i Sânî), Ankara: Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yay., 2018, p. 63, poem no. 25 (manuscript variants in the footnotes on p. 63). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr