Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Şöyle efkār oldı cismüm k'aña pīrāhen dirīġ
Ten eger budur aña ḫākister-i külḫan dirīġ
Ḫālini göstermeyüben ṣaldı zülfi dāmına
Murġ-ı cāndan ḳıldı ol ṣayyād bir erzen dirīġ
Ḳanlu yaşumı ne dem kim isteseñ ḥāżır durur
La‘l-i nābı eylemez ṭāliblere ma‘den dirīġ
Şādi-i vaṣl olmaz ise ġuṣṣa-i hicrüñ büyür
Devr-i la‘lüñde gedādan ḳılma dür derdin dirīġ
Ol gözi cellād hicrinde ölürsem dōstlar
Bu ġarībüñ māteminde eylemeñ şīven dirīġ
Ḥāṣıl-ı ḥüsnüñde ḫālüñ men‘ ḳılma k'eylemez
Çün kerīm olan gedādan dāne-i erzen dirīġ
Ger beḳāda ister iseñ fetḥ-i bāb-ı maġfiret
‘Adliyā ehl-i fenāya eyleme maḥzen dirīġ

In English

1. My body has come to such a state that even a shirt is wasted on it; if this is the body, even the ashes of the bath-house furnace are too good for it. (The edition reads "efkâr"; the word can be taken in the sense of "anxious, sorrowful", but the same spelling can also be read "efgâr", "wounded".)

2. That hunter set the snare of his curls without showing his beauty spot; he begrudged the bird of the soul a single grain of millet. (The beauty spot is likened to the bait in the snare, the curls to the snare; the bird has fallen into the snare without seeing any bait.)

3. My bloody tears are ready whenever you want them; the mine too does not begrudge its pure ruby to those who seek it. (The bloody tear is likened to a red ruby, the eye to a ruby mine.)

4. If there is no joy of union, the grief of your separation grows; in the age when your ruby lip holds sway, do not begrudge the beggar the gathering of pearls. The end of the line is not wholly clear: the phrase "dür derdin" can be understood as "gathering pearls", and here the sweet words falling from the lip or the teeth may be meant.

5. Friends, if I die in separation from that beloved whose eye is an executioner, do not begrudge lamentation at the mourning of this stranger.

6. Do not forbid your beauty spot in the harvest of your beauty, for one who is generous does not begrudge a beggar a grain of millet. (T, M1 and M2 read "grain of the threshing floor" instead of "grain of millet".)

7. Adlî, if you wish the gate of forgiveness to be opened in the hereafter, do not begrudge your treasury to the people of self-annihilation (the poor dervishes who have withdrawn from the world).

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". The redif (refrain word) is "dirîġ"; "dirîġ etmek" means to begrudge, to think something too good for someone. The rhyme is the sound "-en": pîrâhen, külhan, erzen, ma‘den, şîven, mahzen. "Derdin" in the fourth couplet does not fully fit this sound, and the word "erzen" serves as rhyme twice, in the second and sixth couplets. In the edition it carries no separate letter heading and stands, together with the previous ghazal, in the section of the letter "gayn". It is found in all five manuscripts (OR, T, M1, M2, İBB); T lacks the third couplet, and the same manuscript reads "aña" for "k'aña" in the opening couplet and "la‘lüñden" for "la‘lüñde" in the fourth couplet. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The redif gathers the whole ghazal around the ideas of begrudging and giving. In the opening couplet the lover's body has grown so thin and worn that even dressing it in a shirt is a waste; even the ashes of the bath-house furnace are thought too good for it. "Külhan" means, in its dictionary sense, the furnace of a bath-house where the fire is kept. The second and sixth couplets treat the same image from two sides. In the second couplet the beloved is a hunter: he sets his curls as a snare but does not show his beauty spot as bait; the bird of the soul falls into the snare without seeing so much as a grain of millet. In the sixth couplet the lover asks the beloved for that single grain. Beauty is a field, the beauty spot is the produce of this field, and one who is generous does not begrudge a beggar a grain of millet. The reading "harmen" (threshing floor) in T, M1 and M2 strengthens this congruence of images (tenasüp): harvest, threshing floor and grain are words from the same world of the field.

In the third couplet a likeness is drawn between the lover's bloody tears and the ruby. The eye is a mine and the red tears that come out of it are rubies; the mine does not begrudge its ruby to the one who seeks it. The second line of the fourth couplet, however, is not wholly clear. "Devr-i la‘l" can mean both the age in which the lip holds sway and the gathering where red wine passes from hand to hand; "la‘l" means, in its dictionary sense, the red precious stone, the lip and red wine. In the fifth couplet the beloved's eye is an executioner; the lover asks his friends not to begrudge lamentation at his mourning when he dies. In this couplet the redif is tied to something that must not be withheld, the mourning.

The closing couplet changes the voice of the ghazal. The poet addresses himself by his pen name (mahlas) and tells himself that if he wishes the gate of forgiveness to be opened in the hereafter, he must not begrudge his treasury to the "ehl-i fenâ". Fenâ and bekâ, that is, passing away and permanence, are opposed concepts in Sufism and form an antithesis (tezat) in the couplet. "Mahzen" means, in its dictionary sense, treasury, storehouse. The lover who asks the beloved for a single grain speaks in the last couplet as one who has a treasury. Considered as coming from the pen of a sultan, this counsel can be read as pointing also to the ruler's generosity and to gifts made to dervishes. The biographical anthologies speak of Bayezid's gifts to poets and scholars, but there is no information that this ghazal was written on a particular occasion.

Bibliography

  • Yavuz Bayram (ed.), Adlî Dîvânı (Dîvân-ı Sultân Bâyezîd-i Sânî), Ankara: Ministry of Culture and Tourism Publications, 2018, p. 85, poem no. 47 (manuscript variants in the footnote on p. 85).
  • 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 (Latîfî's remark on the poet's contribution to the livelihood of poets).

Online sources