Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün fe‘ūlün

Eger olmaz isem yār ile mūnis
Oluram āh ile zār ile mūnis
Göñül ġam gicesinde yār olmaz
Oluram çeşm-i bīdār ile mūnis
Bedenden vaḥşet eyler cān ile dil
Ḳaçan yār ola aġyār ile mūnis
Alur göñlin virür barmaḳ ḥisābın
Kim olsa zülfi ṭarrār ile mūnis
Ḫazān-ı hicre nice ṣabr ḳılsun
Şu bülbül k'ola gülzār ile mūnis
Eger dār-ı ṣafā isterseñ olma
Bu dār içinde deyyār ile mūnis
Ne ġam bī-keslügüñden ‘Adliyā ger
Olur iseñ seg-i yār ile mūnis

In English

1. If I cannot become intimate with the beloved, I become intimate with sighs and laments.

2. In the night of grief the heart is no companion to me; I become intimate with the sleepless eye. (The heart has been lost to the beloved, and only the wakeful eye shares the night. M1 and M2 read "sleepless body" for "sleepless eye".)

3. Whenever the beloved becomes intimate with rivals, soul and heart grow wild and flee from the body.

4. Whoever becomes intimate with that cutpurse lock of hair, it takes his heart and gives him in return a finger-reckoning. ("Barmak hisâbı" in its dictionary sense means a count made on the fingers; the couplet can be understood to say that the lock steals the heart and hands back an account small enough to count on one's fingers, but exactly what the expression means here is not clear.)

5. How should the nightingale that is intimate with the rose garden bear the autumn of separation?

6. If you want the abode of serenity, do not become intimate with anyone in this abode. (This abode is the world; in their dictionary senses "dâr" means house or abode and "deyyâr" an inhabitant, anyone.)

7. Adlî, if you become intimate with the beloved's dog, what grief need you feel at having no one?

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The ghazal (gazel) has seven couplets and is written in the hezec pattern "mefâ‘îlün mefâ‘îlün fe‘ûlün". The redif (refrain word) is "ile mûnis" (intimate with, at home with), and the rhyme is the sound "-âr": yâr, zâr, bîdâr, ağyâr, tarrâr, gülzâr, deyyâr and, in the makta, yâr once more. The return of "yâr" from the first line of the opening couplet to the same position in the makta ties the two ends of the ghazal together. In the edition it is found in all five manuscripts (OR, T, M1, M2, İBB) and stands in the section of the divan for refrains ending in the letter "sîn", immediately after ghazal 35. Bayram's apparatus records a single variant: in the second couplet M1 and M2 read "cism-i bîdâr" (sleepless body) for "çeşm-i bîdâr" (sleepless eye). To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The subject of the ghazal is the company the lover keeps once he is far from the beloved. In its dictionary sense the word "mûnis" means familiar, congenial, companion, and each couplet shows a different kind of such companionship. In the opening couplet, if the lover cannot be intimate with the beloved, he takes sighs and laments as his friends. In the second couplet even the heart keeps him no company, since it has been given away to the beloved; in the night of grief only his sleepless eye remains beside him. In the third couplet things are reversed: when the beloved becomes intimate with rivals (ağyâr), the lover's soul and heart shy away from his body. Setting yâr and ağyâr against each other in the same line is antithesis (tezat), and the way the two words echo each other in sound gives the couplet a further harmony.

In the fourth couplet the beloved's lock of hair is called "tarrâr", in its dictionary sense a pickpocket or cutpurse. The lock that steals hearts is a familiar image of divan poetry; here the thief, in return for the heart it takes, also hands over a "finger-reckoning". Since the meaning of the expression in this couplet is not clear, it has been rendered with a reservation in the English section. The fifth couplet applies the image of the rose and the nightingale to separation: the nightingale used to the rose garden cannot bear the coming of autumn, and the lover used to the beloved cannot bear separation. There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) among gülzâr, bülbül and hazân.

The sixth couplet is the ghazal's couplet of counsel. The contrast between "dâr-ı safâ" (abode of serenity) and "bu dâr" (this abode) is its key: whoever wants the abode of serenity must form no bond with anyone in this worldly abode. Because "dâr" and "deyyâr" come from the same root, their use together is an example of the figure called iştikak (derivation). The makta reinterprets this counsel for the lover. The dog waiting at the beloved's door is, in divan poetry, the creature closest to the beloved's threshold; if the lover can befriend it, he need not grieve over having no one. Here the poet addresses himself and uses the word "bî-keslik" (having no one). Recalling that the word came from the pen of a sultan lends the couplet a particular weight, but since it is not known in which period the ghazal was written, no conclusion can be drawn from this.

Bibliography

  • Yavuz Bayram (ed.), Adlî Dîvânı (Dîvân-ı Sultân Bâyezîd-i Sânî), Ankara: Ministry of Culture and Tourism Publications, 2018, p. 74, poem no. 36 (manuscript variants in the footnote on p. 74).

Online sources