Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün fe‘ūlün

Ḥabīb-i cān-fezā sāz ögrenürmiş
Ciger sūz u cefā-sāz ögrenürmiş
Maḳāmāt añdı ṣordum būselikde
Ser-āġāz itdi şehbāz ögrenürmiş
Cefānuñ resmini ḫoş bilmiş ammā
Vefā āyinini az ögrenürmiş
Göñül virme güzeller leblerine
Ḥarīs olur yaramaz ögrenürmiş
Eger ‘Adlī ḥabībe hem-dem olsa
Lebinden ‘İsi i‘cāz ögrenürmiş

In English

1. The soul-reviving beloved, they say, is learning to play the saz; he is learning, they say, to burn the heart and to work cruelty. (In the first line the word "sâz" means the musical instrument; in the compound "cefâ-sâz" of the second line it means "maker, doer".)

2. He named the makams, and I asked him about Bûselik; that royal falcon made a beginning, so he is learning, it seems. (Bûselik is a makam, a melodic mode of Turkish music; the şahbaz, the royal falcon, is here the beloved. The couplet can be read in two ways: the beloved has made an opening in the Bûselik mode, or he has only just begun on what he was asked about. Within the name of the mode the Persian word "bûse" (kiss) can also be heard.)

3. He knows well, it seems, the ways and manners of cruelty, but of the rite of faithfulness he is learning little.

4. Do not give your heart to the lips of the fair; the heart grows greedy and learns mischief, they say.

5. If Adlî were the beloved's intimate companion, he would learn from his lip the miracle of Jesus. (Jesus is believed to have raised the dead with his breath; the beloved's lip likewise gives life to the lover.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The ghazal (gazel) has five couplets and is written in the hezec pattern "mefâ‘îlün mefâ‘îlün fe‘ûlün". The redif (refrain word) is "ögrenürmiş" (is learning, it seems; would learn), and the rhyme is the sound "-âz": sâz, cefâ-sâz, şehbâz, az, yaramaz and i‘câz. According to Bayram's apparatus the ghazal survives in only one of the five manuscripts, T (44b); it is absent from OR, İBB, M1 and M2. In the edition it is the last poem of the section for refrains ending in the letter "şîn", after which the section of the letter "sâd" begins. Since it rests on a single manuscript, the apparatus records no variants. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The subject of the ghazal is a beloved who has begun learning to play the saz, and the first two couplets are woven with musical terms. The suffix "-mış" in the redif shows that the poet heard this news from someone else or realised it afterwards: the beloved, it seems, is learning the saz. Both lines of the opening couplet end in the same sound "sâz". In the first the word means the instrument; in the second, in the compound "cefâ-sâz", it has the Persian sense of "maker, doer"; the use of the same sound in two different meanings is paronomasia (cinas). In this way the beloved's learning the saz is equated with learning to burn the heart and to work cruelty: the sound of the saz burns the lover's heart.

In the second couplet the beloved names the makams, and the lover asks him about the Bûselik makam. Bûselik is one of the well-known makams of Turkish music. Within the word the sound of the Persian "bûse" (kiss) can be heard, and the couplet can therefore be read as carrying a double entendre (tevriye): the lover's asking about Bûselik is like asking the beloved for a kiss. The beloved is called "şehbâz", the royal falcon; in its dictionary sense it is the most prized of the hunting birds, and in divan poetry it describes the fair and proud beloved. The word "ser-âğâz" means in its dictionary sense a beginning; the beginning the beloved makes may describe the opening of a makam or being still at the start of learning. There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) among the words makâmât, Bûselik, ser-âğâz and sâz.

In the third couplet the musical comparison turns into a language of instruction. The beloved has learned well the "resm", the manner, of cruelty, but of the "âyin", the rite, of faithfulness he has learned little. The contrast between cefa (cruelty) and vefa (faithfulness) is antithesis (tezat), and the closeness of the two words in sound adds harmony to the couplet. The fourth couplet gives the lover counsel: the heart must not be given to the lips of the fair, because whoever gives his heart to the lip grows greedy and learns mischief. It is notable that in this couplet the redif passes from the beloved to the heart; in this couplet the one who learns is the heart.

The makta closes the image of the lip with an allusion (telmih) to Jesus. Jesus is believed to have raised the dead with his breath, and in divan poetry the beloved's lip and breath are likened to this miracle. Could Adlî be the beloved's intimate companion, he would learn the miracle of Jesus from his lip; that is, the life the lip bestows would pass to the lover as well. The lip that makes the heart mischievous in the fourth couplet becomes, in the makta, a lip that revives, and the ghazal ends on this contrast.

As reported in Bayram's introduction, some sources state that Bayezid II was the first Ottoman sultan to occupy himself seriously with music, that he composed, and that six peşrevs and three saz semâîs are attributed to him. The fact that the ghazal is built on musical terms may be mentioned together with this information, but there is no source stating that the poem is connected with the poet's own interest in music.

Bibliography

  • Yavuz Bayram (ed.), Adlî Dîvânı (Dîvân-ı Sultân Bâyezîd-i Sânî), Ankara: Ministry of Culture and Tourism Publications, 2018, p. 80, poem no. 42 (manuscript information in the footnote on p. 80; Bayezid II's interest in music in the introduction, p. 26).
  • Osman Nuri Özpekel, "Şâir ve Bestekâr Osmanlı Padişahları", Osmanlı, vol. 10, ed. Güler Eren, Ankara: Yeni Türkiye Yay., 1999, pp. 609-610 (cited from Bayram's introduction).

Online sources