Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

İşigüñ dārü'ş-şifāsından şu dil kim dūr olur
Derdine dermān bulınmaz hicr ile mehcūr olur
İtleri ḳarşu gelüp veh veh dir idi ḥālüme
Ḫaste ḳaldum ḫaste olan dōstlardan dūr olur
Ruḫlaruñ şevḳiyle bir ‘āşıḳ ki cān vire senüñ
Ḳabri anuñ ḥaşr olınca dōstum pür-nūr olur
Ṣanuram cāndan belā-yı nā-gehānī def‘ olur
Her ḳaçan kim bāb-ı dil-berden raḳībi dūr olur
Ża‘f māni‘ oldı işigüñde cān virmeklüge
Ḫasteler işinde ihmāl eylese ma‘ẕūr olur
Niçe kāfir ḳal‘asın almaḳ naṣīb itdi Ḫudā
‘Adli dil-ber göñlini almaḳ kime maḳdūr olur

In English

1. This heart that has fallen far from the hospital of your threshold finds no cure for its pain; it is left abandoned and alone by separation.

2. The dogs (of your street) used to come up to me and say "alas, alas" at my state. I was left sick; and one who is sick falls far from his friends.

3. My friend, the grave of a lover who gives up his life for you in longing for your cheeks will be filled with light until the Day of Resurrection.

4. Whenever the rival is far from the beloved's door, I think sudden misfortune is driven away from my soul.

5. My weakness kept me from giving up my life at your threshold; if the sick neglect a task, they are to be excused. (The OR manuscript reads "as if" in place of "weakness".)

6. God granted the taking of many an infidel fortress; but, Adlî, who has the power to take the beloved's heart?

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The ghazal (gazel) has six couplets and is written in the remel metre of aruz (quantitative metre), in the pattern "fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilün". The redif (refrain word) is "olur" and the rhyme is the sound "-ûr": dûr, mehcûr, pür-nûr, ma‘zûr, makdûr. The word "dûr" (far) enters the rhyme three times, in the opening couplet and in the second and fourth couplets; since distance is the real subject of the poem, the repetition matches the sense. The ghazal is a verse form whose couplets are bound by the same rhyme and redif, whose first couplet (matla) rhymes within itself, and whose last couplet (makta) carries the poet's pen name (mahlas). In Yavuz Bayram's edition it rests on the OR, T, M1 and M2 manuscripts; it is absent from İBB. The manuscript variants touch only two words ("sanki" for "za‘f" in couplet 5 and "kal‘a" for "kal‘asın" in couplet 6, both in OR). To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

Throughout the poem sickness and separation are tied together. In the opening couplet the beloved's threshold is a "dârü'ş-şifâ", a hospital; the heart that has fallen far from it can find no remedy. The words for pain, remedy and cure form a congruence of images (tenasüp). The second couplet holds a well-known image of divan poetry: the dogs of the beloved's street. The lover is so wretched that even the dogs who see his state pity him, while his human friends have drawn away because he is sick. The bitterness of the couplet lies in the fact that the pity comes from dogs and not from people.

The third couplet presents dying for love as a kind of deliverance: the grave of the lover who gives up his life in longing for the beloved's cheek is filled with light until the end of time. In the fourth couplet the rival is seen as the misfortune at the beloved's door; when he goes away, the sudden misfortunes also lift from the lover's soul. The fifth couplet is a subtle apology. The lover wishes to die at the threshold, but his sickness leaves him without strength even for that; the negligence of the sick is forgiven.

The makta carries a tension often seen in Adlî's poems. The verb "almak" is used in two separate senses: to take a fortress, that is, to conquer it, and to take a heart, that is, to win someone's affection. God has granted the taking of many infidel fortresses, yet the beloved's heart cannot be taken by any power. The word "makdûr" means, in its dictionary sense, "within one's power"; the question says that conquering a fortress is easy and conquering a heart impossible. Bayram writes that the divan contains more than forty couplets pointing to the poet's identity as sultan; the section in which he lists them was not printed in the e-book. The makta, too, speaks of the conquest of fortresses as something from the poet's own life, but there is no information on which campaigns are meant or on whether the poem was written in the Amasya years or during the reign.

Bibliography

  • Yavuz Bayram (ed.), Adlî Dîvânı (Dîvân-ı Sultân Bâyezîd-i Sânî), Ankara: Ministry of Culture and Tourism Publications, 2018, p. 67, poem no. 29 (manuscript variants in the footnote on p. 67); on the couplets pointing to the sultan's identity, introduction, p. 13.

Online sources