Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Ḫançerüñden istemez ḳaṭ‘ā dil ü cān inḳıṭā‘
Tīġüñ üstine göñül cān virdügine ne nizā‘
Hem-dem olsa düşmen ile göñlüm ider el-firāḳ
Merḥabā itse raḳībe cānum eyler el-vedā‘
Çün niḳābın ref‘ ide ‘ışḳ ehline düşer ḫurūş
Ẕerreler ẓāhir olur gün nūrı bulsa irtifā‘
Dil-berüñ yolında ben resm eyledüm cān virmegi
‘Āşıḳa cevr ü cefā itmek sen itdüñ iḫtirā‘
Tā ebed tārīk ḳalmaz ẓulmet-i dünyā-yı dūn
‘Işḳ nūrı kim ṣala dil ḫānesi içre şu‘ā‘
Rūz-ı maḥşer nāle vü zāruñdan olmaz fā’ide
Eylemezseñ bunda ‘Adlī dād-ḫᵛāhı istimā‘
Māl-i ḳalbīdür hemān cem‘iyyetinden fā’ideñ
Tāc-ı şāhīden ne oldı ḫāṣıluñ ġayrı ṣudā‘

In English

1. Heart and soul never wish to be parted from your dagger; since the heart gives up its life upon your sword, what is there to dispute?

2. If the beloved keeps company with the enemy, my heart cries out "separation"; if he greets the rival, my soul bids farewell.

3. When the beloved lifts the veil, an outcry breaks out among the people of love; when the light of the sun rises, the motes become visible. (The lovers are likened to the motes of dust that appear in sunlight, the beloved's face to the sun.)

4. I made it my custom to give up my life on the beloved's path; and it was you who invented tormenting and wronging the lover.

5. As long as the light of love casts its rays into the house of the heart, the darkness of this base world does not remain dark for ever.

6. Adlî, if you do not listen here (in this world) to the complaint of the one who seeks justice, your moaning and weeping on the Day of Judgement will be of no use.

7. The couplet can be read in two ways. In the first reading: the only profit left to you from amassing wealth is a counterfeit, worthless coin. In the second reading: your true profit is the wealth of the heart that comes from the heart's being collected and at peace. The second line: what have you gained from the royal crown but a headache?

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 "-â‘": inkıtâ‘, nizâ‘, el-vedâ‘, irtifâ‘, ihtirâ‘, şu‘â‘, istimâ‘, sudâ‘. Most of these rhyme words are Arabic and give the ghazal a weighty, sonorous sound. 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 "ayn". In the İBB manuscript the second line of the last couplet is missing. In the sixth couplet the phrase "eylemezseñ bunda" appears as "eylemez kevnde" in İBB and as "eylemezseñ günde" in OR. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The first five couplets treat the familiar relation between lover and beloved. In the opening couplet "kat‘â" (never, by no means) and "inkıtâ‘" (being cut off, separation) come from the same root and form a congruence of images (tenasüp) with the cutting of the dagger; the heart does not wish to be cut off from the dagger that cuts it. The second couplet is built on antithesis (tezat): the beloved's companionship with the enemy makes the lover say "el-firâk" (separation), and the greeting he gives the rival makes the lover's soul say "el-vedâ‘" (farewell). Greeting and farewell, coming together and parting, stand face to face in the same couplet. In the third couplet the beloved is the sun; when he lifts the veil, the lovers appear like the motes that become visible in the air when the sun rises. This relation between mote and sun is a familiar image in divan poetry expressing the lover's smallness and his attachment to the beloved. The fourth couplet sets the words "resm" (custom) and "ihtirâ‘" (invention) against each other: the lover has made giving up his life a custom, while the beloved has invented cruelty. In the fifth couplet there is antithesis between the light of love and the darkness of the world.

In the last two couplets the voice of the ghazal changes. In the sixth couplet the poet addresses himself by his pen name (mahlas) and says that he should listen in this world to the voice of the one who seeks justice, or else the outcry he raises on the Day of Judgement will be of no avail. "Dâd-hᵛâh" means, in its dictionary sense, "one who seeks justice, a plaintiff". The pen name itself also means "pertaining to justice"; Latîfî writes that Bayezid took the pen name "Adlî" because at the gate of justice he was like Kisrâ, the just ruler of Iran. Bayram too describes in his introduction the importance Bayezid gave to justice and cites the sixth couplet of ghazal 41 as an example of it. The sixth couplet of this ghazal touches on the same subject; read in the mouth of a ruler, the hearing of complaints turns directly into a duty of kingship.

In the second line of the closing couplet the relation of king and servant moves outside the frame of beloved and lover. It is said that the only thing gained from the "tâc-ı şâhî", the royal crown, is "sudâ‘"; this word means, in its dictionary sense, "headache". Since the crown is worn on the head, there is congruence between headache and crown. The phrase "mâl-i kalbî" in the first line is open in two directions: "kalb" means, in its dictionary sense, both "heart" and "counterfeit, debased coin", and "cem‘iyyet" means both "amassing" and "peace of heart". The couplet can be read as counsel questioning what worldly wealth and kingship bring a person. Âşık Çelebi's remark that Bayezid turned to poetry whenever he grew weary of the affairs of state brings this couplet to mind; but there is no information on when and on what occasion the couplet was written.

Bibliography

  • Yavuz Bayram (ed.), Adlî Dîvânı (Dîvân-ı Sultân Bâyezîd-i Sânî), Ankara: Ministry of Culture and Tourism Publications, 2018, p. 83, poem no. 45 (manuscript variants in the footnote on p. 83); for Latîfî's remark on the pen name, introduction, p. 10, note 46; for the emphasis on justice and G.41-6, introduction, pp. 22-23.
  • Yavuz Bayram, "Adlî (Sultan Bâyezîd-i Velî bin Fatih Sultan Mehmed)", Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü (TEİS), https://teis.yesevi.edu.tr/madde-detay/adli-sultan-bayezid-i-veli-bin-fatih-sultan-mehmed (Âşık Çelebi's assessment).

Online sources