Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün

Müyesser olsa yārüñ bāde-i la‘liyle hem-demlik
Görürlerdi ṣafā bezminde nice olduġın Cemlik
Bu Zāl-i dehr-i dūnuñ ol ḳadar çekdüm cefāsın kim
Cihāna dāstān oldı benüm ḥaḳḳumda Rüstemlik
Ḳamu ḥüsn ehlinüñ aġzına sen mühr-i sükūt urduñ
Senüñ aġzuñda ḫatm olmuş durur ‘ālemde ḫātemlik
Marīż-i ‘ışḳ olanlara eṭıbbā idemez tedbīr
Lebüñden olur olursa benüm derdüme emsemlik
Beḳāyı fikr ider olsañ fenā milkinde iy ‘Adlī
Cihāna pādşāh olmaḳ ḥaḳīḳat oldı bir demlik

In English

1. Were it granted to be the intimate companion of the beloved's ruby-lip wine, they would see at the feast of delight what the kingship of Cem is like. (Cem is Jamshid, the legendary Persian king said to have discovered wine and remembered for his cup.)

2. I have suffered so much cruelty from this base Zâl of a world that my Rüstem-like endurance has become a legend in the world. (Zâl and Rüstem are father and son, heroes of the Persian epic; in its dictionary sense "zâl" means an old man whose hair has turned white, and the world is imagined here as an old tyrant.)

3. You have set the seal of silence on the mouths of all the fair; in the world, being a seal ring has reached its end in your mouth. (The beloved's small, round mouth resembles a seal ring; there is no finer "seal" than it.)

4. Physicians can find no cure for those sick with love; if there is anything to be a remedy for my pain, it comes from your lip.

5. O Adlî, if you think of permanence in this realm of transience, being padishah over the world is in truth but a moment.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The ghazal (gazel) has five couplets and is written in the long hezec pattern made of four "mefâ‘îlün". The redif (refrain word) is the suffix "-lik", and the rhyme is the sound "-em": hem-dem, Cem, Rüstem, hâtem, emsem and dem. According to Bayram's apparatus the ghazal is found in all five manuscripts (OR, T, M1, M2, İBB). T reads "nābıyle" (with its pure wine) for "la‘liyle"; T, M1 and M2 read "şol" for "ol"; and T reads "sükūn" for "sükūt". In the edition it stands in the section of poems ending in the letter kef (Ḥarfü'l-kâf). In his 2008 article examining the spelling features of the British Library manuscript of the divan (OR), Bayram gave this ghazal as a sample text from folio 14a of OR, and cited the words "hemdemlik" and "Rüstemlik" as examples of how the suffix "-lik" is spelled in this manuscript. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The first two couplets of the ghazal contain allusions (telmih) to the legendary kings and heroes of Iran. In the opening couplet the poet says that if he could be the intimate companion of the wine of the beloved's lip, his state at the feast would outshine even the kingship of Cem. In divan poetry Cem is known as the owner of wine and of the cup that showed the world; lip, wine and feast therefore call up the name of Cem quite naturally. In its dictionary sense the word "hem-dem" means one who shares the same breath, an intimate companion, and the closing couplet will end with the same word "dem".

In the second couplet the world is called "Zâl-i dehr", the old man of the world. In the Persian epics Zâl is a hero born with white hair and the father of Rüstem; in its dictionary sense "zâl" means an old man. The poet has borne the cruelty of this old and base world so long that his endurance has become as legendary as Rüstem's heroism. The father-and-son relation between Zâl and Rüstem lends the couplet a subtle irony: the name of Rüstem's father becomes the name of the world that torments Rüstem.

The third couplet is built on mouth and seal. The beloved's mouth is so beautiful that it has sealed the mouths of the other beauties and silenced them. In its dictionary sense "hâtem" is a seal ring; in divan poetry the small, round mouth is likened to a seal. "Hatm", on the other hand, means the coming to an end of a thing. Since the two words come from the same root, the couplet contains the figure of derivation (iştikak): the quality of being a seal has reached its "hatm" in the beloved's mouth, its last and most perfect form. The fourth couplet treats the familiar motif that sees love as an illness and the beloved as the physician. Physicians can find no cure for the lovesick; the remedy lies only in the beloved's lip. In its dictionary sense "emsem" means medicine, remedy in Old Anatolian Turkish; it also occurs together with the lip in poem 72 of the divan.

The closing couplet is the most striking in the ghazal. If one thinks of permanence in the realm of transience, even being padishah over the world is "bir demlik", a matter of a moment. There is a clear antithesis between "fenâ" (transience) and "bekā" (permanence), and the word "milk" (realm) prepares the idea of kingship. The "hem-dem" of the opening couplet and the "bir dem" of the closing couplet also answer each other: the ghazal opens with the "dem" of companionship at the feast and closes with the "dem" of a lifetime. That the person saying this was a prince or a sultan gives the couplet a weight of its own. Even so, there is no source showing whether the couplet was written in the Amasya years or the years of his reign, and deriving a date from it would be interpretation.

Bibliography

  • Yavuz Bayram (ed.), Adlî Dîvânı (Dîvân-ı Sultân Bâyezîd-i Sânî), Ankara: Ministry of Culture and Tourism Publications, 2018, p. 98, poem no. 60 (manuscript information in the footnote on p. 98; for the second occurrence of "emsem", p. 110, poem no. 72).
  • Yavuz Bayram, "Sultan İkinci Bâyezîd-i Velî (Adlî) Dîvânı'nın British Library Nüshasında İmlâ Husûsiyetleri", Turkish Studies 3/6 (Fall 2008), pp. 109-142 (spelling of the suffix -lik, p. 122; sample text of the ghazal from OR 14a, p. 134).

Online sources