Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Cüvānları seveliden bu pīr-i bī-tedbīr
Beni esirgeyüp aġlar eger cüvān ger pīr
Anuñ selāsil-i zülfine olalı şeydā
Ne bend żabṭ idebilür beni ne ḫod zencīr
Bugün ki naḳd ayaġuña cān nis̱ār iderem
Ḳabūl eyle hey āfet ki öldürür te’ḫīr
Bu şevḳ ile dilerem kīşüñe olam ḳurbān
Ki āhu-yı dile şīrāne urasın bir tīr
Benüm ḳuṣūrumı bulduñ vefāda anuñçün
Sen itmedüñ hele cevr eylemekde hīc taḳṣīr
Cinānda yürür idüm vāḳı‘amda dimişsin
Düşüñse ḫayr ola ṣūfī ki ‘aksidür ta‘bīr
Muḥaḳḳaḳ oldı ki ‘Adlī ḫaṭı ġamın yazmış
Ḳara yüzüñ gibi alnuñda kātib-i taḳdīr

In English

1. Ever since this helpless old man (that is, I) began to love the young, everyone, young or old, pities me and weeps. (M1 and M2 read "söyileden" in place of "seveliden": since he began to talk with the young.)

2. Since I went mad for the chains of the beloved's curls, neither bond nor chain can hold me. (Madmen were once put in chains; but no chain can hold the lover caught in the chain of the curls.)

3. Today, as I scatter my soul at your feet as ready cash, accept it, O ravishing calamity, for delay kills.

4. With this longing I wish to be a sacrifice to your quiver, so that you might shoot an arrow, lion-like, at the gazelle of my heart. (Kîş is understood here as "quiver"; with the reading "işüñe" in the T manuscript: may I be a sacrifice to your deeds.)

5. You found a fault in my faithfulness; that, it seems, is why you yourself have never fallen short in cruelty.

6. You have said, "In my dream I was walking in Paradise"; O Sufi, may your dream be a good one, but a dream is interpreted by its opposite. (The poet says that the interpretation of a dream comes out the reverse; accordingly the Sufi's dream of Paradise is read in reverse.)

7. It has become certain that the scribe of destiny has written the grief of the down for Adlî on your forehead, black like your face. (The couplet can be read in two ways: if "Adlî" is a vocative, the scribe of destiny has written, pitch-black, on Adlî's forehead the grief born of the down on the beloved's cheek. Read as addressed to the beloved, Adlî's grief has been written on the forehead of the beloved, whose face darkens as the down grows. M1 and M2 read "yüzü" in place of "yüzüñ".)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This is a ghazal (gazel) of seven couplets. It is written in the müctess pattern "mefâ‘ilün fe‘ilâtün mefâ‘ilün fe‘ilün". It has no redif (refrain word); the rhyme is the sound "-îr": tedbîr, pîr, zencîr, te'hîr, tîr, taksîr, ta‘bîr, takdîr. The ghazal is found in the OR, T, M1 and M2 manuscripts and not in İBB. The edition's footnotes record six variants; the most important are the readings "söyileden" in the first couplet (M1, M2), "huzûrumı" in the fifth couplet (OR) and "yüzü" in the last couplet (M1, M2). For the fourth couplet the footnote reads "k'işüge] işüge T"; the word in the footnote does not exactly match the form "kîşüñe" in the text. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal opens in the voice of an old lover who has given his heart to the young. In the first couplet the tezat (antithesis) between "cüvân" (young) and "pîr" (old) is drawn twice: first the loved ones are young and the lover old; then among those who pity the lover there are both young and old. The occurrence of the rhyme word "pîr" in two separate places within the same couplet gives it a cadence of repetition. The adjective "bî-tedbîr" (helpless, without resource) expresses the uselessness of reason and prudence in the face of love. Whether the ghazal has anything to do with the poet's real age is not known; the sources contain no information on the matter.

In the second couplet the curls are a chain. Because madmen were once put in chains, no bond or chain can now hold the lover who has been caught in the chain of the curls and gone "şeydâ" (mad); the only chain that could hold him is the curls themselves. In the third and fourth couplets the lover offers his soul as a sacrifice. The soul is "cash" scattered at the beloved's feet; the beloved is an "âfet", one whose beauty brings calamity. The phrase "öldürür te'hîr" (delay kills) is spoken like a piece of advice and also shows the lover's impatience. In the fourth couplet the lover's heart is a gazelle, and the beloved a hunter who shoots arrows like a lion; there is a hunting tenasüp (congruence of images) among "âhû" (gazelle), "şîr" (lion), "tîr" (arrow) and "kîş" in the sense of quiver.

In the fifth couplet "kusûr" (fault) and "taksîr" (falling short) come from the same root; this is the figure called iştikak (derivation). The lover seems to admit a fault in his own faithfulness, but then gives a barbed reply by saying that the beloved has never fallen short in cruelty. The sixth couplet changes the mood of the ghazal and turns to address a Sufi. The Sufi has told how he walked in Paradise in his dream; the poet says to him "may it be a good one", but adds that a dream is interpreted by its opposite. The criticism of the ascetic and the Sufi, frequent in divan poetry, is made here by way of a dream interpretation. The theme of dream and interpretation also appears in the opening couplet of Ghazal 137 in the divan; there the heart sees its place in Paradise in sleep and interprets this as dwelling in the beloved's street.

The couplet with the pen name (mahlas) rests on the idiom "alın yazısı", the writing on the forehead, that is, one's destiny. The scribe of destiny (kâtib-i takdîr) has written on the forehead, and what he has written is the "grief of the hat". The word "hat" means both writing and the down on the beloved's face; this tevriye (double entendre) builds the couplet. That the writing is black "like a black face" refers both to the colour of the ink and to the shame in the idiom "yüzü kara" (black-faced, disgraced). It is not certain whom the couplet addresses. If "Adlî" is read as a vocative, the poet speaks of the grief written on his own forehead; if read as addressed to the beloved, Adlî's grief has been written on the forehead of the beloved, whose beauty darkens as the down grows. The reading "yüzü" in M1 and M2 does not settle the choice between these two senses either.

Bibliography

  • Yavuz Bayram (ed.), Adlî Dîvânı (Dîvân-ı Sultân Bâyezîd-i Sânî), Ankara: Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yay., 2018, p. 65, poem no. 27 (manuscript variants in the footnotes on p. 65; the same edition, p. 175, for Ghazal 137). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr