Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün

Gün yüzüñ üstinde olmış rā ḳaşuñ iy meh hilāl
Kim görüpdür āftāb ile hilāle ittiṣāl
Kim ki aḫşam zülfüñi göre gicesi ḳadr olur
Kim yüzüñ görse seḥer zī-ṭāli‘-i ferḫunde-fāl
Her gice ḥālüm perīşān ṣubḥa dek zār eylerem
Eyledi sevdā-yı zülfüñ çün beni āşüfte-ḥāl
Sen baña raḥm eylemeñ ‘ālemde bir emr-i ba‘īd
Ben senüñ vaṣluñ temennāsı ‘aceb fikr-i muḥāl
Sīm ü zerden dām idüp ol vaḥşiyi eyle şikār
‘Adliyā ṣayd olduġı yoḳdur ġazelle bir ġazāl

In English

1. O moon-faced one, above your sunlike face your eyebrow, shaped like the letter "râ", has become a crescent; who has ever seen the sun joined with the crescent?

2. Whoever sees your locks at evening, his night becomes the Night of Power (Kadir gecesi); whoever sees your face at dawn becomes fortunate and of happy omen.

3. Every night, my state in disarray, I moan until morning; for the passion for your locks has thrown me into confusion.

4. That you should take pity on me is a remote thing in this world; that I should wish for union with you is a strange and impossible thought.

5. Set a snare of silver and gold and hunt that shy gazelle; Adlî, no gazelle has ever been caught with a ghazal.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The ghazal (gazel) has five couplets and is written in the remel metre "fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilün". It has no redif (refrain word); the rhyme is the sound "-âl": hilâl, ittisâl, fâl, hâl, muhâl, gazâl. In Bayram's edition it is number 76 and it is found in all five manuscripts (OR, T, M1, M2, İBB). OR and İBB read "iderem" instead of "eylerem", and in the fourth couplet T reads "biz" instead of "ben" and "emr" instead of "fikr". The second line of the final couplet differs among the manuscripts: M1 has "gazel" instead of "gazelle", while T and İBB have "gazel birle" instead of "gazelle bir". It is not known to whom or when it was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet is built on a comparison drawn from a letter and from the sky. The Arabic letter "râ" (ر), with its curved shape, is likened to the eyebrow and to the crescent moon. The beloved's face is the sun, and the eyebrow is a crescent standing above that sun. The poet calls out "iy meh", "O moon"; while the beloved is addressed as the moon, the face becomes the sun and the eyebrow the crescent. The question in the second line is the subtlety of the couplet: who has ever seen the sun joined with the crescent? In its dictionary sense "ittisâl" means joining, conjunction. The poet presents the meeting of the sun and the crescent as something never seen; on the beloved's face, however, the two are side by side. There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) among sun, moon and crescent.

The second couplet sets evening against dawn, locks against face. The locks, with their blackness, correspond to night, and the face, with its brightness, to morning. Whoever sees the locks at evening, his night becomes the Night of Power. According to the article "Kadir Gecesi" in the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, in divan poetry the beloved's face and hair are likened to the light sent down on the Night of Power; however dark the night on which the beloved shows his face, it is counted as having the brightness and worth of the Night of Power. In the couplet, too, locks and night are joined with the worth of the Night of Power. Whoever sees the face at dawn becomes "zî-tâli‘-i ferhunde-fâl", that is, fortunate and of happy omen. There is antithesis between evening and dawn, night and morning, and a congruence of images (tenasüp) between locks and night.

In the third couplet the image of the locks continues. "Perîşân" means both scattered and distressed, and "âşüfte" both tangled and distracted by love; both are adjectives used for dishevelled hair. The lover's state has become as distressed as the beloved's dishevelled locks. The word "sevdâ", in its dictionary sense, means both the passion of love and the colour black and black bile; the "sevdâ" of the black locks therefore carries both senses at once. The fourth couplet compares two impossibilities: that the beloved should show pity is a remote chance, and that the lover should wish for union is an impossible dream. "Emr-i ba‘îd" (a remote thing) and "fikr-i muhâl" (an impossible thought) stand opposite each other in the two lines.

The final couplet is the most striking in the ghazal. "Gazel" is the poetic form and "gazâl" the gazelle; the two words differ by a single long vowel, and this likeness is the figure called cinas (paronomasia). The beloved is likened to a shy gazelle, a "vahşî" (wild creature). The poet tells himself to hunt that gazelle with a snare of silver and gold, because a gazelle is not caught with a ghazal. A poet who writes ghazals saying that the ghazal is not enough to win the beloved turns the couplet into a joke that turns back on itself. That the one speaking the line is a ruler who possesses gold and silver adds a further dimension to the couplet. The manuscript reading "gazel birle" carries the same meaning.

Bibliography

  • Yavuz Bayram (ed.), Adlî Dîvânı (Dîvân-ı Sultân Bâyezîd-i Sânî), Ankara: Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yay., 2018, p. 114, poem no. 76 (manuscript information in the footnote on p. 114). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr
  • M. Sait Özervarlı and Mustafa İsmet Uzun, "Kadir Gecesi", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/kadir-gecesi (Uzun's section "Edebiyat ve Sosyal Hayat").

Online sources