Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Bir mülāyim dil-bere ‘ālemde ḳıymet var mıdur
Ḫāk-i pāyine yüz urmaḳ deñlü ‘izzet var mıdur
Baḳışuñdan añlayup ḫalvet ṭurup biñ nāz ile
Ṭolaşup tenhā gelüp diye ki ḥiẕmet var mıdur
İverek la‘l-i lebinden būse iḥsān eyleye
Ya‘ni kim cānda anuñ mānendi leẕẕet var mıdur
Cevre baḳup ḫavf ile gitse ḫırāmān oluban
Bundan artuḳ daḫı ‘ālemde ḳıyāmet var mıdur
Ḫāk-i pāyi cevherine naḳd-i cān ister nigār
‘Adliyā sulṭān geçersin sende ḳudret var mıdur

In English

1. Is there anything in the world of such worth as a gentle, heart-winning beloved? Is there any honour equal to rubbing one's face in the dust beneath the beloved's feet?

2. Suppose the beloved understood from your glance what you wished, rose in private with a thousand coquetries, wandered about and came alone, and asked, "Is there any service I can do?" (The T manuscript reads "ya kaşınla" in place of "bakışından": understanding when you signalled with your brow.)

3. Suppose the beloved hurried to bestow a kiss from those ruby lips, as if to say, "Is there any sweetness in the soul like this?" (The OR manuscript reads "izzet" in place of "lezzet": is there any honour like this?)

4. Suppose the beloved glanced around in fear and went off with a swaying walk; is there any greater doomsday in the world than this? (Kıyamet here means both the Last Day and the tumult raised by a beautiful figure and gait. The word "cevre" can also be associated with "cevr", cruelty.)

5. The beloved asks the cash of the soul in return for the jewel that is the dust beneath those feet. O Adlî, you pass for a sultan; do you have the means to pay this?

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This is a ghazal (gazel) of five couplets. It is written in the remel pattern "fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilün". The redif (refrain word) is "var mıdur" (is there?), and the rhyme is the sound "-et": kıymet, izzet, hizmet, lezzet, kıyâmet, kudret. The ghazal is found only in the OR and T manuscripts; it is not in İBB, M1 or M2. In Yavuz Bayram's footnotes the variants are concentrated in the T manuscript: in the second couplet "ya kaşuñla" in place of "bakışuñdan" and "hidmet" in place of "hizmet"; in the third couplet "ol perî" in place of "iverek" and "lebüñden" in place of "lebinden". OR, for its part, has "izzet" in place of "lezzet" in the third couplet. The edition's text gives the word in the second couplet as "hiẕmet". To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

Every couplet of the ghazal ends with the question "var mıdur" of the redif. These questions are asked not to obtain information but to stress that something is beyond compare; this figure is called istifham (rhetorical question). The opening couplet (matla) asks: is there anything more precious than a gentle beloved, anything more honourable than rubbing one's face in the dust of the beloved's feet? The adjective "mülâyim" (gentle, mild) in the first line is the key to the ghazal. The usual beloved of divan poetry is a beauty who torments the lover and drives him from the door; in this ghazal, by contrast, the poet imagines a gentle beloved who comes of his own accord, asks to be of service and bestows a kiss.

The second and third couplets set the scene of this fancy. The beloved understands from the lover's glance what he wishes, rises in private, wanders about with a thousand coquetries, comes alone and asks, "Is there any service?" This question creates a reversal of the usual order, with the beloved serving the lover. In the third couplet the beloved hurries to bestow a kiss; the word "ihsan" (bounty) recalls that the gift is a favour granted by the great to the small. The use of the verbs in the optative-conditional mood ("diye", "eyleye", "gitse") shows that the whole scene is an unrealised wish.

In the fourth couplet the beloved glances around for fear of being seen and goes off with a swaying walk. The word "kıyâmet" is used here in two senses: both the end of the world and the tumult a beautiful figure raises as it walks. This link between kıyâmet and the swaying walk (hırâmân) is often made in the older poetry through the beloved's stature (kâmet) raising a doomsday. The word "cevre" is written in the text with "c"; because "c" and "ç" were written with the same letter in the old script, the word is read as "çevre" (around), but it also calls to mind the word "cevr" (cruelty).

The couplet with the pen name (mahlas) is the most striking place in the ghazal. The beloved sets the value of a jewel on the dust of his feet and asks the cash of the soul in return. The poet addresses himself: "O Adlî, you pass for a sultan; do you have the means to pay this?" Here the lover's sultanship is set against the price the beloved asks. When one considers that the man who wrote the poem really was a sultan, the couplet turns into a jest, even a piece of self-deprecation: even the treasury of one of the most powerful rulers in the world cannot pay this price, because what is asked is the soul itself. The words nakd (cash), cevher (jewel) and kudret (power, means) build the tenasüp (congruence of images) of this reckoning of a bargain.

Bibliography

  • Yavuz Bayram (ed.), Adlî Dîvânı (Dîvân-ı Sultân Bâyezîd-i Sânî), Ankara: Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yay., 2018, p. 64, poem no. 26 (manuscript variants in the footnotes on p. 64). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr