Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Ben ḳulına cevr iden ol ḫusrev-i ḫūbānimiş
Ẓann iderdüm ben anı kim āfet-i devrānimiş
N'ola cāndan ben anı artuḳ seversem dōstlar
Ol perī-peyker benüm cānum içinde cānimiş
Şād gördüm dil-beri cānum sevindi ol meger
Ġuṣṣa-i hicrānda aġladuġuma ḫandānimiş
Sen şeh-i milk-i cemāle ḳul olayın dirimiş
Gör bilür mi ḥaddini ‘Adlī ‘aceb ṣulṭānimiş
Her zamān ḳadrüm felekden yücedür dir öginür
Dil-berinüñ işiginde ol meger derbānimiş

In English

1. The one who torments me, his servant, turns out to be the king of the fair; I used to think he was the calamity of the age.

2. Friends, why wonder if I love him more than life; that fairy-faced one turns out to be the soul within my soul.

3. I saw the heart-ravisher happy and my soul rejoiced; it turns out he was laughing at my weeping in the grief of separation. (T, M1 and M2 read "in the grief of his separation" for "in the grief of separation".)

4. He was saying, "You are the king of the realm of beauty; let me be your servant"; see, does Adlî know his place? What a strange sultan he turns out to be. (OR reads "the moon of the realm of beauty" for "the king of the realm of beauty".)

5. He always boasts, saying "my worth is higher than the heavens"; it turns out he was the doorkeeper at his heart-ravisher's threshold. (The couplet can be read in two ways: the one who boasts may be the poet himself, that is Adlî, or the lover in general.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The ghazal (gazel) has five couplets and is written in the remel pattern "fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilün". The redif (refrain word) is "imiş", and the rhyme is the sound "-ân": hûbân, devrân, cân, handân, sultân and derbân. 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 "şîn". According to Bayram's apparatus, T, M1 and M2 read "hicrinde" for "hicrânda" in the third couplet and OR reads "meh" (moon) for "şeh" in the fourth; in the fifth couplet İBB writes "yüce diyü" for "yücedür dir" and OR "diyü" for "dir". To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The redif "imiş" carries all the couplets of the ghazal. In Turkish this suffix expresses a state of affairs realised after the fact or learned from someone else; in the ghazal too each couplet ends in surprise, in a conclusion reached with "meğer" (so it turns out). In the opening couplet the lover, who had taken his tormentor for the calamity of the age, realises that he is the king of the fair. In the second couplet he finds the reason why he loves the beloved more than his own life: the beloved is the soul within his soul. In the third couplet joy and pain change places. The lover sees the beloved smiling and rejoices, then realises that the beloved was laughing at his tears of separation. The contrast between weeping and laughing (handân) is antithesis (tezat).

The fourth couplet is one of the clearest examples of the irony of king and servant in Adlî's poems. The lover says to the beloved, "You are the king of the realm of beauty; let me be your servant." The line that follows seems to report these words from someone else's mouth: "Gör bilür mi haddini Adlî, aceb sultânımış." Knowing one's place (haddini bilmek) means in its dictionary sense knowing one's own position and limits. Two meanings are interwoven here. On the one hand the lover who wishes to be the beloved's servant is praised as one who truly knows his place; on the other, Adlî, who says this, is himself a sultan, and a sultan who wishes to be a servant is called "a strange sultan". Because the word "aceb" means both wondrous and strange, the line carries the two readings together. When it is known that the ghazal was written by a sultan, this couplet, in which the beloved is the "king" and the poet the "servant", takes on a particular meaning. The reading "meh" (moon) in OR, by contrast, makes the beloved the moon of the realm of beauty and weakens the link in the couplet between king and sultan.

The makta continues this irony from another direction. The one who always boasts "my worth is higher than the heavens" turns out to be a doorkeeper at the beloved's threshold. Doorkeeping (derbânlık) means in its dictionary sense the work of guarding a door, and by worldly measure it is a humble service; but to be at the beloved's door is, for the lover, a rank higher than the heavens. The couplet says that the height he boasts of comes from this doorkeeping. Who the boaster is is not stated outright in the line; read together with the fourth couplet, he may be thought to be Adlî. The contrast of height and lowness between the heavens and the threshold is also antithesis.

Bibliography

  • Yavuz Bayram (ed.), Adlî Dîvânı (Dîvân-ı Sultân Bâyezîd-i Sânî), Ankara: Ministry of Culture and Tourism Publications, 2018, p. 77, poem no. 39 (manuscript variants in the footnote on p. 77).

Online sources