Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Muṣḥaf-ı ḥüsnüñde yazup müşg ile reyḥāni ḫaṭ
Eylemiş i‘rāb sünbül dāne-i fülfül nuḳaṭ
‘Ārıżuñda ḫaṭṭ-ı müşgīnüñ niçün ḳılduñ tırāş
Eylemez çün kātib-i Ḳudret bilürsin sehv ḫaṭ
Āteş-i āhum yaḳardı şem‘veş başdan beni
Çeşme-i çeşmüm benüm ger olmasa Ceyḥūn u Şaṭ
Çün ṭarīḳ-i ‘ışḳa cān virmekdür iy dil ibtidā
Kimse āḫir bulımaz aña nihāyet hem vasaṭ
Çün dehānuñ sırrınuñ idrākine irmez ‘uḳūl
Vehm ü ḥiss her ne ḫayāl eylerse olur hep ġalaṭ
Müşk-i çīn aldı ḳoḫu zülfüñden ammā Çīn'de
Olmadı bir nāfede zülfüñ gibi bir ca‘d-ı ḫaṭ
Çeşmüñ iy dil-ber senüñ yaġma idelden ‘Adli'yi
Varı ol bī-çārenüñ ‘ālemde mihrüñdür faḳaṭ

In English

1. On the Mushaf of your beauty reyhânî script has been written in musk, and the hyacinth has vowelled it, making grains of black pepper its dots. (The face is likened to a copy of the Qur'an, the down on the cheek to script, the hair to the hyacinth, and the beauty spots to grains of black pepper and to the dots of the script.)

2. Why did you shave the musk-scented down on your cheek? You know that the scribe of Divine Power (God) writes no mistaken script.

3. Were the fountain of my eye not like the rivers Ceyhun and Şat, the fire of my sigh would burn me from the head down like a candle.

4. O heart, since the beginning of the path of love is to give up one's life, no one can find either the end or the middle of that path.

5. Since minds cannot attain to the secret of your mouth, whatever imagination and the senses picture is all mistaken. (The beloved's mouth is so small that the mind cannot grasp it.)

6. The musk of China took its scent from your curls, but in China there has never been, in any musk pod, a curling line like your curls.

7. O beloved, ever since your eye plundered Adlî, all that helpless man has in the world is your love alone.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The ghazal (gazel) has seven couplets and is written in the remel pattern "fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilün". It has no redif (refrain word); the rhyme is the sound "-at": hat, nukat, Şat, vasat, galat, fakat. The word "hat" is used three times in rhyme position (couplets 1, 2 and 6), but each time a different sense comes forward: script, the down on the cheek and a curling line. In the edition the ghazal is found in all five manuscripts (OR, T, M1, M2, İBB) and is the only poem of the section of the divan for refrains ending in the letter "tâ". The manuscript variants are many: M1 reads "fakat" for "nukat" at the end of the opening couplet, while OR reads "nukat" for "fakat" at the end of the closing couplet; T, M1 and M2 write "yâri" for "varı" in the closing couplet. The last word of the sixth couplet also changes in the manuscripts ("lat" in OR and İBB, "kat" in T). To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The first two couplets of the ghazal are built with images of script and the book. The beloved's face is a Mushaf; the down on the cheek is lines written on this Mushaf in musk ink, and the black beauty spots are the dots and vowel signs of the letters. The word "reyhânî" means, in its dictionary sense, both the name of a style of calligraphy and "belonging to the basil plant"; script and scent are thus named together, and a congruence of images (tenasüp) is set up with musk and hyacinth. "İ‘râb" means vowelling, "nukat" dots. The second couplet continues this simile: the down is the script of the scribe of Divine Power, that is, of God, and He does not write in error; the beloved's shaving of this down is therefore like erasing a flawless text. The words script, scribe and error (sehv) are in congruence.

In the third couplet the lover presents himself as one who burns from the head down like a candle; what keeps him from burning up entirely is the tears flowing from his eyes. In the phrase "çeşme-i çeşm" there is a likeness of sound between "çeşme" (fountain) and "çeşm" (eye). Ceyhun and Şat are, in their dictionary sense, the names of the Amu Darya in Central Asia and of the Shatt al-Arab formed by the joining of the Tigris and Euphrates; the names of great rivers are used to exaggerate the abundance of tears. The fourth and fifth couplets treat the impossibility of grasping love and the beloved through reason. The path of love begins with giving up one's life; there is congruence among the words beginning, middle and end. The fifth couplet rests on the motif of the small mouth, common in divan poetry: the mouth is so small that mind, imagination and the senses cannot find it, and everything said about it turns out mistaken.

The sixth couplet is an example of hüsn-i talil (poetic aetiology). The musk of China took its fine scent from the beloved's curls, but the musk pod lacks the curl of the curls. "Nâfe" means, in its dictionary sense, the musk pod in the navel of the musk deer. In the closing couplet the eye is a plunderer; it has taken whatever Adlî had and left him only the beloved's love. The word "mihr" means, in its dictionary sense, both "love" and "sun". The relation of king and servant does not occur in the ghazal.

Bibliography

  • Yavuz Bayram (ed.), Adlî Dîvânı (Dîvân-ı Sultân Bâyezîd-i Sânî), Ankara: Ministry of Culture and Tourism Publications, 2018, p. 82, poem no. 44 (manuscript variants in the footnote on p. 82).

Online sources