Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

İy kemān-ebrū n'ola ḳurbān idersem cān saña
Biñ benüm bigi ider her laḥẓa cān ḳurbān saña
Mihrüñi cānda ezelden saḳlar idüm sanma kim
Dār-ı dünyāda görüp ḥayrān olupdur cān saña
Dilde ġamzeñ zaḫmına merhem didüm dil-ber didi
Tīr-i müjgānum yeter her laḥẓada dermān saña
Pertev-i ḥüsnüñ meger eflāke düşmiş ay u gün
Gice gündüz raḳṣ urup olmış durur ḥayrān saña
Ḫūblıḳ sende temām olduğına ḫuccet durur
Kâtib-i ḳudret ki yazmış ol ḫaṭ-ı reyḥān saña
Bil hemān ben dimezem aduña şeyṭān iy raḳīb
Bunca çoḳ telbīs ile her kişi dir şeyṭān saña
Ḫūn-ı dil yaşuñla ‘Adlī gerçi seyl oldı dirīġ
Ḳanlu yaşuñ göricek raḥm eylemez cānān saña

In English

1. O beloved with brows like a bow, what wonder is it if I sacrifice my life to you? Thousands like me sacrifice their lives to you at every moment.

2. I have kept your love hidden in my soul since pre-eternity; do not think that my soul saw you in this house of the world and only then fell in love with you. (The love is said to have begun on the day of pre-eternity, when souls were created, and not in this world.)

3. I asked what salve there is for the wound your glance has opened in my heart; the heartbreaker said: "The arrow of my lashes is remedy enough for you at every moment." (The gamze is the beloved's languid, wounding glance; the eyelashes are imagined as arrows. The wit of the couplet lies in offering, as the cure for the wound, the very thing that wounds.)

4. Surely the light of your beauty fell upon the heavens; the moon and the sun turn night and day in a dance, lost in wonder at you.

5. The proof that beauty has reached its perfection in you is this: the Scribe of Power (God) has written that reyhânî script for you. ("Hat" means both script and the down on the cheek; "reyhânî" means both basil-scented and greenish and is also the name of one of the six classical calligraphic scripts. The down on the beloved's cheek is likened to fine writing that God has inscribed on the face.)

6. O rival, know this: I am not the only one who calls you "devil" by name; with all your deceit, everyone calls you devil. (Telbîs means "deceit, trickery" and is close in sound to the word "İblis", the Devil; the T manuscript reads "iblîs" instead of "şeytân".)

7. O Adlî, the blood of your heart has flowed in a torrent with your tears, but alas, even on seeing your bloody tears the beloved feels no pity for you.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The ghazal (gazel) is the most cherished verse form of divan poetry; it is usually written in five to fifteen couplets, the opening couplet (matla) has both lines rhyming, and in the last couplet (makta) the poet mentions his pen name (mahlas). This ghazal by Adlî has seven couplets. The metre is the "fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilün" pattern of the remel family of aruz (quantitative metre). The redif (refrain word) is "saña" ("to you"); the rhyme is built on the sound "-ân": ḳurbān, ḥayrān, dermān, reyḥān, şeyṭān, cānān. In the opening couplet the word "kurbân" (sacrifice) appears in both lines; the phrase "cân ḳurbān" in the second line repeats the first line in reverse.

This is the first of the Turkish ghazals in the edition. In divan poetry ghazals are arranged by the last letter of their rhyme, and this ghazal opens the "Harfü'l-elif" section, the ghazals ending in the letter elif. It stands fourth in the edition and is found in the OR, T, M1 and M2 manuscripts; it is absent from İBB because the opening leaves of that manuscript are missing. The 5th, 6th and 7th couplets are missing in M1, and the 6th couplet in M2. In the Adlî entry of TEİS, Bayram gives this ghazal, after the münacat, as the second sample of the poet's work. There is no record of to whom or when it was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal treats the beauty of the beloved and the helplessness of the lover through classical motifs. In the opening couplet the beloved is addressed as "kemân-ebrû", bow-browed; this epithet, which calls to mind the bow and the arrow, joins with "tîr-i müjgân" (the arrow of the lashes) and "zahm" (wound) in the third couplet to form a chain of congruent images (tenasüp). The word sacrifice is used twice in the opening couplet: the lover is ready to sacrifice his life, yet this is no distinction, since thousands are doing the same at every moment. The lover's view of himself as one among a crowd sets from the start the humble voice of the rest of the ghazal.

The second couplet rests on a Sufi idea. The lover says that his love did not begin with seeing the beloved in this world but has been hidden in his soul since pre-eternity. The contrast between "ezel" (pre-eternity) and "dâr-ı dünyâ" (the house of the world) carries the source of love beyond time. The third couplet is built on a paradox: to the lover who asks for a cure for the wound opened by the glance, the beloved offers a new wound, the arrow of the lashes, as the remedy. That the one who opens the wound should also provide the cure is a familiar expression in divan poetry of the idea that the lover takes delight in pain.

In the fourth couplet the turning of the moon and the sun is explained through fanciful aetiology (hüsn-i ta‘lîl): the heavenly bodies revolve night and day in a dance because they are enraptured by the light of the beloved's beauty cast upon the sky. In the fifth couplet the face is a page, and the down on the cheek a script written by the "kâtib-i kudret", the Scribe of Power, that is, God. The word "reyhân" is a double entendre (tevriye) here: it recalls both the greenness and scent of basil and the calligraphic script called reyhânî. As Bayram notes, Bayezid took calligraphy lessons from the famous calligrapher Şeyh Hamdullah while he was governor (sancakbeyi) in Amasya. The image of writing in the couplet is of interest when read alongside this information, but the sources draw no direct connection between the couplet and those lessons.

In the sixth couplet the third figure between lover and beloved, the rival (rakip), enters the scene. The reason he is called "devil" is his "telbîs", his deceit; that the word telbîs recalls "İblis" in sound strengthens the wit of the couplet. In the closing couplet the poet addresses his pen name and describes his own state: his tears have mingled with the blood of his heart and become a flood, but the beloved shows no pity even for this. There is a congruence of images among blood, tears and flood; "ḫūn-ı dil" and "ḳanlu yaş" repeat the same image in two languages, first in Persian and then in Turkish.

Bibliography

  • Yavuz Bayram (ed.), Adlî Dîvânı (Dîvân-ı Sultân Bâyezîd-i Sânî), Ankara: Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yay., 2018, p. 42, poem no. 4; introduction p. 16 (calligraphy lessons from Şeyh Hamdullah), pp. 30-32 (description of the manuscripts). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr
  • Yavuz Bayram, "Adlî", Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü (TEİS), 2013 (updated 2022), section "Eserlerinden Örnekler" (samples of his work).

Online sources