Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilün

Dōstlar düşmen olupdur yine ol yār baña
Hele yār itdügini eylemez aġyār baña
Yollar itdi yüzi üstinde gözi yaşı revān
Nālem işitdi meger aġladı kühsār baña
Baña yārüm ġamı yetmez mi bütün ‘ālemde
Cevr itdügi nedür ‘ālem-i ġaddār baña
Yüzine baḳmaġa māni‘ olur ebr-i zülfi
Gün mi gösterdi ‘aceb baḫt-ı siyeh-kār baña
Zülf-i dil-dāre şebīh itdügüme incinüben
Gör ki dönderdi meger nāfe-i tātār baña
Dil ża‘īf oldı taḥammül idemez bār-ı ġama
Serber olur ġam-ı hicrān daḫı her bār baña
‘Adliyā ṣoḥbet-i aġyār ile bīzār oldum
Ḫoş gelür yār-ı vefādār ile bāzār baña

In English

1. My friends have turned enemies against me, and so, once again, has that beloved; truly, what the beloved does to me not even the strangers (the rivals) would do.

2. The mountain must have heard my moaning, for it wept for me; its tears flowing down its face have cut paths. (The streams running down the mountains are likened to tears the mountain sheds out of pity for the lover.)

3. Is the grief of my beloved not enough for me in all the world? What is this torment that the treacherous world inflicts on me as well?

4. The cloud of the beloved's locks keeps me from looking at the face; strange to ask, has my black fortune ever shown me a day of sun? ("Gün" means both the sun and a good day. The face is likened to the sun, the locks covering it to a cloud; the ill-starred lover can see neither the beloved's face nor happiness.)

5. Offended, it seems, because I likened it to the beloved's locks, look, even the musk pod of Tatary has turned its face from me. (Musk, obtained from the musk deer of Central Asia, is a substance that divan poetry likens to the fragrant, dark locks of the beloved. The couplet can be read in two ways: the musk was offended, finding the comparison unworthy of itself; or being compared to the locks weighed upon the musk, since the locks are superior to it.)

6. The heart has grown weak and cannot bear the load of grief; on top of that, the pain of separation becomes, each time, a further load piled upon the load. ("Bâr" means both "load" and "time, occasion"; the phrase "her bâr" brings both meanings to mind at once.)

7. O Adlî, I am weary and sick of the company of strangers; what pleases me is dealing with a faithful beloved. (Bîzâr means "weary, sick of", bâzâr "trade, market"; the two words are very close in sound.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This is a ghazal (gazel) of seven couplets. The metre is the "fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilün" pattern of the remel family of aruz (quantitative metre). The redif (refrain word) is "baña" ("to me"); the rhyme is built on the sound "-âr": yār, aġyār, kühsār, ġaddār, siyeh-kār, tātār, her bār, bāzār. The rhyme "her bār" in the sixth couplet, together with "bār-ı ġama" in the same couplet, uses the word "bâr" in two different senses.

The ghazal stands sixth in the edition and belongs to the section of ghazals ending in the letter elif. It is found in the OR, T, M1 and M2 manuscripts and is absent from İBB. The first three couplets are missing in M1 and M2; in these two manuscripts the ghazal begins with the fourth couplet. The first line of the fourth couplet is also read in different forms in the manuscripts. There is no record of to whom or when it was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The subject of the ghazal is the lover besieged on every side. In the first couplet his friends have become enemies and the beloved has joined them; the poet's bitter observation is that not even the strangers do what the beloved does. The contrast between friend and enemy, between yâr (beloved) and ağyar (strangers), is a clear example of antithesis (tezat). In the second couplet, by contrast, nature shows the mercy that people withhold: the mountain hears the lover's moaning and weeps, and its tears cut paths across its face like streams. The mountain hearing and weeping like a human being is personification (teşhis); the conceit that the streams are the mountain's tears is fanciful aetiology (hüsn-i ta‘lîl).

In the third couplet the word "‘âlem" (world) is repeated in both lines: the beloved's grief is enough for the lover in all the world, yet the "‘âlem-i ġaddâr", the treacherous world, torments him besides. The fourth couplet carries one of the subtlest conceits of the ghazal. The beloved's face is the sun, the locks a cloud covering it; the lover cannot see the face. The question that follows plays on the two meanings of the word "gün": the ill-starred lover has seen in his life neither the sun nor a good day. The relations between "gün" and "siyeh" (black), between "ebr" (cloud) and "gün", weave the couplet together with congruence of images (tenasüp) and antithesis.

The fifth couplet takes up the traditional comparison between the locks and musk. In divan poetry the beloved's fragrant, dark hair is likened to musk from the land of the Tatars. Adlî interprets this comparison in reverse: the musk pod, offended by the comparison, has turned its face from the lover. The couplet does not say plainly which is superior to which, and it can be understood in two ways.

In the sixth couplet the word "bâr" is used in two senses through paronomasia (cinas): "bâr-ı ġam" means the load of grief, "her bâr" means each time. While a single load is already too much for the weakened heart, the pain of separation adds a new load on top of it each time. The word printed "serber" in the edition has been understood from the context as "an extra load placed on top of the load"; this reading is not certain. There is a similar sound play in the closing couplet: "bîzâr" and "bâzâr" differ by only one vowel. The poet is weary of the company of strangers, while he finds pleasant the "trade" to be had with a faithful beloved. The ghazal thus returns to the contrast between yâr and ağyar of the first couplet; the beloved who was faithless in the first couplet is longed for in the last as "yâr-ı vefâdâr", the faithful beloved.

Bibliography

  • Yavuz Bayram (ed.), Adlî Dîvânı (Dîvân-ı Sultân Bâyezîd-i Sânî), Ankara: Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yay., 2018, p. 44, poem no. 6. ekitap.ktb.gov.tr