Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Yüzüñi göricek artar enīni zārlaruñ
Olur bahār olıcaḳ nālesi hezārlaruñ
Dilüme lāle gibi deşt-i ġamda dāġ ḳodı
Ṭarāvet-i ruḫı vü ḫāli gül-‘iẕārlaruñ
Yüzüñ güli ki aña ‘öẕr-ḫᵛāh ola ġam yoḳ
Ṭutam ki ḫār-ı belādur bu ḫār-ı zārlaruñ
Hevā-yı ‘ışḳ bu deşt-i ġam içre kāfīdür
Ḳarārını bile virmege bī-ḳarārlaruñ
Viṣāl ümīdiyile ‘Adliyā berāber ider
Yüzi vü zülfi ġamı leyl ile nehārlaruñ

In English

1. When they see your face, the moaning of those who lament increases; when spring comes, the cry of the nightingales begins. (The beloved's face is likened to spring, the lovers to nightingales.)

2. The freshness of the cheek and the beauty spot of the rose-cheeked ones left a burn mark on my heart, like the tulip, in the desert of grief.

3. If the rose of your face asks pardon for it, there is no grief; suppose that this thorn the lamenting ones suffer is a thorn of calamity. (The couplet is not fully clear. The meaning may be this: the rose comes with its thorn; if the rose of your face asks pardon for the thorn that pricks the lovers, it matters little that the thorn is a thorn of calamity.)

4. In this desert of grief the passion of love is enough to make the restless give away even what peace they have left. (With the reading of the OR manuscript: the air of love is enough for them to give their peace to the wind.)

5. O Adlî, in the hope of union, grief for his face and his curl makes the lovers' nights equal to their days. (The lovers suffer the same grief night and day; the curl corresponds to night, the face to day.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The ghazal (gazel) has five couplets and is written in the müctes pattern "mefâ‘ilün fe‘ilâtün mefâ‘ilün fe‘ilün". The redif (refrain word) is the plural and genitive suffix "-laruñ" and the rhyme is the sound "-âr": zâr, hezâr, gül-‘izâr, hâr-ı zâr, bî-karâr, nehâr. The plural suffix of the refrain shows that the ghazal describes the condition not of a single lover but of the community of lovers. According to Bayram's apparatus the ghazal is found in five manuscripts (OR, T, M1, M2, İBB), but the third couplet is missing from İBB. This couplet has many variants: OR reads "olduġum" for "ola ġam" and "ṭutam" for "ṭutam ki"; M1 and M2 read "ḫārḫārlaruñ" for "ḫār-ı zārlaruñ". In the fourth couplet OR reads "yile vir tā ki" for "bile virmege". In the edition it stands in the section of poems ending in the letter kef (Ḥarfü'l-kâf). To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal describes the lovers' grief through images of spring and the garden. In the opening couplet the beloved's face is likened to spring and the lovers to nightingales; but the comparison is not stated openly, it is suggested by placing the two lines side by side. This is the hidden simile known as teşbih-i zımnî. In its dictionary sense "hezâr" means both "a thousand" and "nightingale"; here it means nightingale. There is a closeness of sound between "zâr" (one who laments) and "hezâr".

In the second couplet the tulip is set in its familiar place in divan poetry. In the middle of the tulip's red petals there is a black spot; in poetry this spot is thought of as a "dâğ", a burn mark or the scar of cauterisation. The beloved's red cheek with the black beauty spot on it also recalls the tulip. The cheek and beauty spot of the rose-cheeked ones have opened a wound of the same kind in the lover's heart. Grief is likened to a desert (deşt); and since the tulip is thought of as a flower that grows in the open country and the steppe, there is congruence of images (tenasüp) between the desert and the tulip.

The third couplet develops the image of the rose and the thorn. There is no rose without a thorn; if the beloved's face is a rose, the thorns that prick the lovers come along with this rose. The poet does not mind the thorn being a thorn of calamity, so long as the rose of the face asks pardon. Because of the manuscript variants the reading of the couplet is not certain. The word "ḫārḫār" in M1 and M2 in its dictionary sense means an anxiety that scratches at a person's insides, inner distress; with this reading the couplet likens the lovers' inner distress to a thorn of calamity. Thorn, rose and calamity again belong to the same garden world.

In the fourth couplet the word "hevâ" has two meanings. In its dictionary sense hevâ means both desire, passion, and air, wind. The air of love blowing in the desert of grief carries off even the last peace left in the hands of lovers who are already restless. The OR reading "yile vir" brings the sense of wind to the fore: to give something to the wind is to scatter it and destroy it. The words "karâr" and "bî-karâr" are used side by side here, as in the opening couplet of Ghazal 65.

The closing couplet compares night and day. The beloved's face corresponds to day by its brightness, the black curl to night by its darkness. Since the line names first the face, then the curl, and then first night, then day, the pairings are in reverse order; this is the mixed-order kind of the figure leff ü neşr. For lovers living in the hope of union, grief for the face and the curl makes night and day one: the lover suffers the same grief by night and by day.

Bibliography

  • Yavuz Bayram (ed.), Adlî Dîvânı (Dîvân-ı Sultân Bâyezîd-i Sânî), Ankara: Ministry of Culture and Tourism Publications, 2018, p. 104, poem no. 66 (manuscript information in the footnote on p. 104).

Online sources