Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Ol dil-ber-i zībā gibi meh-çehre güzel yoḳ
Bu ḥüsn-i dil-ārāya cihān içre bedel yoḳ
Vuṣlat demidür çünki bu dem ḫāne-i dilden
İy ġam yüri gitgil ki daḫı saña maḥal yoḳ
Ṭurrañ ṣalalı silsilesin ḳalmadı kimse
Göñlinde anuñ ġuṣṣa vü ġam ṭūl-i emel yoḳ
Ṣūfī beru gel mey içelüm jeng-i ġam içün
Dil āyinesin ṣāf idici ġayrı ‘amel yoḳ
Sāḳī lebüñüñ āb-ı ḥayātını iden nūş
Ḥıżr oldı ebed āḫir aña hergiz ecel yoḳ
Miḥnet evidür dār-ı cihān eyleme feryād
Bu medrese-i ġamda göñül baḥs̱ u cedel yoḳ
Vaṣfında anuñ gerçi ġazeller didi ‘Adlī
Ol dil-ber-i ra‘nāyı beyān ide ġazel yoḳ

In English

1. There is no beauty like that adorned, moon-faced heart-stealer; in all the world there is no equal to this heart-adorning loveliness.

2. Since this is now the hour of union, O grief, get out of the house of the heart; there is no more room for you there. (The phrase "from the house of the heart" in the first line is read with the command "go" in the second. Manuscript T reads "dahıdur" for "demidür".)

3. Ever since your forelock let down its chain, there is no one left in whose heart there is not sorrow, grief and endless longing for it. (The forelock is the lock of hair falling over the brow; being long and ringed, it is likened to a chain.)

4. Sufi, come here, let us drink wine against the rust of grief; there is no other means to polish the mirror of the heart. (Old mirrors were made of metal and so gathered rust; grief is the rust on the mirror of the heart, and wine is what wipes it away.)

5. Cupbearer, whoever drinks the water of life of your lip has become Khidr; for him there is never any death, to all eternity. (The water of life is the water that makes the drinker immortal; Khidr is held to have drunk it and attained immortality. In manuscript İBB the second line is read so that it means "now there is no death for him in the world".)

6. The abode of this world is a house of trouble, do not cry out; O heart, in this school of grief there is no debate and no dispute. (In the medrese there is scholarly debate; in the school of grief no one objects, one only endures.)

7. Adlî has indeed spoken ghazals in praise of that one, but there is no ghazal that could describe that graceful beloved.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The ghazal (gazel) has seven 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 "-el": güzel, bedel, mahal, emel, amel, ecel, cedel and gazel. Like the ghazal before it, this poem says in every couplet that something does not exist; the redif seals the judgement each couplet reaches with a single word. In the edition the ghazal is found in all five manuscripts (OR, T, M1, M2, İBB) and stands in the section of the divan for refrains ending in the letter "kâf". The manuscript variants are few: T reads "dahıdur" for "demidür" in the second couplet and "vasfuñda" for "vasfında" in the closing couplet; İBB gives the second line of the fifth couplet differently. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet proclaims the beloved's matchlessness. The beloved is "meh-çehre", moon-faced, and the beauty adorns hearts; there is no counterpart to it in the world. The second couplet opens a scene within the ghazal: the hour of union has come, and the poet turns grief, which has been sitting in the house of the heart, out of doors. Grief is personified here like a guest driven from the house. In the third couplet the forelock is likened to a chain; since this chain was let down, everyone's heart holds sorrow for it. "Tûl-i emel" means, in its dictionary sense, long hope, a desire that never ends. The length of the forelock and the length of the longing meet in the same adjective; there is a congruence of images (tenasüp) among chain, forelock and length.

The fourth and fifth couplets pass into the language of the drinking gathering. The poet invites the Sufi to drink wine, because grief is like rust on the mirror of the heart and there is no other act that can wipe it away. Mirror, rust and polishing form a congruence of images; inviting the Sufi to wine is also a joke often met in divan poetry. In the fifth couplet the cupbearer takes the place of the beloved: his lip is the water of life, and whoever drinks it becomes immortal like Khidr. The simile between the lip and the water of life is joined with the antithesis between death and immortality.

The sixth couplet describes the world as a "mihnet evi", a house of trouble, and grief as a medrese. The business of the medrese is bahs and cedel, that is, debate; but in the medrese of grief there is no debate, and the student only endures. The congruence among the words medrese, bahs and cedel turns the couplet into a scene of teaching. The closing couplet returns the ghazal to where it began. "Ol dil-ber", the first words of the opening couplet, are used again in the closing couplet. Adlî grants that he has spoken ghazals in praise of the beloved, but says that none of them was enough to describe the beloved. The poet thus counts his own poetry inadequate before the beloved's beauty. The closeness in sound between "güzel" (beauty), standing in the rhyme position of the first couplet, and "gazel" (ghazal), standing in the rhyme position of the last, also ties the two ends of the poem together.

Bibliography

  • Yavuz Bayram (ed.), Adlî Dîvânı (Dîvân-ı Sultân Bâyezîd-i Sânî), Ankara: Ministry of Culture and Tourism Publications, 2018, p. 88, poem no. 50 (manuscript variants in the footnote on p. 88).

Online sources