Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mef‘ūlü mefā‘īlü mefā‘īlü fe‘ūlün

Şā‘irdür ki nigārın leb-i la‘l-i teri yoḳ
Şol ṭūṭiye benzer ki ġıdāya şekkeri yoḳ
Nāveklerin ol ḳaşı kemān aldı tenümden
Ol ṭā’ire döndüm ki anuñ bāl ü peri yoḳ
Ḫākister idüp virdi tenüm bād-ı fenāya
Kimdür ki diyen āhum odınuñ şereri yoḳ
Vā‘iẓ ki Ceḥīm'ün ẓulümātın ider evṣāf
Fürḳat şebidür var ise k'anuñ seḥeri yoḳ
‘Adlī ser-i zülfüñle ayaġuñ tozın ister
Kim salṭanatında daḫı tāc u kemeri yoḳ

In English

1. A poet who has no fresh ruby lip of a beloved is like a parrot that has no sugar for food. (The parrot is fed on sugar and speaks; what makes the poet speak is the beloved's lip.)

2. That beloved with the bow-shaped brow took his arrows back from my body; I became like that bird which has neither wing nor feather. (The feathers of the arrows lodged in the body had served the lover as wings; when the arrows were drawn out he was left wingless.)

3. The fire of my sigh turned my body to ash and scattered it to the wind of nothingness; who is it that says the fire of my sigh has no spark?

4. The darkness of Hell that the preacher describes, if there is a night that has no dawn, is the night of separation.

5. Adlî longs for the tip of your curls and the dust of your feet, for in his kingdom he no longer has either crown or belt.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The ghazal (gazel) has five couplets and is written in the hezec pattern "mef‘ûlü mefâ‘îlü mefâ‘îlü fe‘ûlün". The redif (refrain word) is "yok" (there is not), and the rhyme is the sound "-eri": teri, şekkeri, peri, şereri, seheri, kemeri. Each couplet names a lack, and the redif repeats this lack at the end of the couplet. In the edition the ghazal is found in all five manuscripts (OR, T, M1, M2, İBB) and opens the section of the divan for refrains ending in the letter "kâf". The beginning of the opening couplet is printed in the edition as "Şâ‘irdür ki", but the lemma in the footnote gives the word "şâ‘irde"; OR, İBB and M1 read "şâ‘ir", while M2 reads "bir şâ‘ire yârüñ ki". The meaning stays roughly the same in every reading. In the third couplet OR reads "hazâna" (to autumn) for "fenâya". To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet is a judgement on the relation between poetry and love. A poet without the beloved's lip is like a parrot without sugar. In divan poetry the parrot (tûtî) is the bird fed on sugar that repeats the words taught to it; the lip, too, is likened to sugar for its sweetness. The poet's ability to speak is thus tied to the beloved's lip. There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) among lip, sugar and parrot, and the whole couplet is built on a simile.

The second couplet turns the image of archery in an unexpected direction. The beloved's brow is a bow, and the arrows it has shot have lodged in the lover's body. The feathers at the back of the arrows had become like wings to the lover; when the beloved takes his arrows back, the lover turns into a bird without wing or feather. The couplet can be understood in this way; it then says that even the arrow the beloved shoots is a gain for the lover. In the third couplet the fire of the sigh has turned the body to ash and given it to the wind of nothingness; no one can say that a fire which burns so much has no spark. The words fire, ash, wind and spark are in congruence. In the fourth couplet the darkness the preacher describes for Hell is compared with the night of separation: if there is a night without a dawn, it is the night of separation. A religious concept is reinterpreted in the language of love, and the preacher, like the zahid (ascetic), is indirectly named as one who does not know what love is.

The closing couplet is the most meaningful of the ghazal. Adlî longs for the tip of the beloved's curls and the dust of the beloved's feet, for in his "kingdom" he has neither crown nor belt. The couplet pairs two images with two objects: the dust of the feet, placed on the head, becomes a crown, and the curls, wound round the waist, become a belt. The line names first the curls and then the dust, while their counterparts come first as crown and then as belt; this arrangement, in which the order is mixed, is called leff ü neşr-i müşevveş. The couplet can be understood in this way. The irony in Adlî's poems takes its plainest form here: the one who says he has no crown and no belt in his kingdom is in reality a prince or a sultan who has both. The real crown and belt are counted worthless before the dust of the beloved's feet and the curls. There is no information showing whether this saying belongs to the Amasya years or to the years of the reign.

Bibliography

  • Yavuz Bayram (ed.), Adlî Dîvânı (Dîvân-ı Sultân Bâyezîd-i Sânî), Ankara: Ministry of Culture and Tourism Publications, 2018, p. 87, poem no. 49 (manuscript variants in the footnote on p. 87).

Online sources