Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Dil ü cān çekse ġamın sen ṣanemüñ ġam degül ol
Ger nem olmaya gözüm hicr ile nesnem degül ol
Gözümüñ yaşını ‘ummāna nice beñzedeyüm
Ki kenārında bunuñ ḳaṭre ḳadar nem degül ol
Neñ durur diyü eger kimse ṣora yārī direm
Dü cihān içre benüm varum odur nem degül ol
Ṣalunurken seni nāz ile görenler didiler
Ya perī-zāde durur ya melek ādem degül ol
Güneşi gördi gözüm dil seni ṣandı didi cān
Ḳāmeti serv-i gülüñ yoḳ durur epsem degül ol
Nice ṣayd ide diyem baña sen āhūyı raḳīb
Gerçi av iti durur kelb-i mu‘allem degül ol
‘Adli mīr olalıdan derd ü belā kişverine
Ḳılmadı ġuṣṣa vü ġam milk-i müsellem degül ol

In English

1. If heart and soul bear the grief of you, my idol (the beloved worshipped like an idol), that is no grief; if my eye is not wet with separation, that eye is nothing of mine.

2. How can I liken the tears of my eye to the ocean? Beside them the ocean is not even a drop's worth of moisture.

3. If anyone asks me "What do you have?", I say "My beloved"; in both worlds all I possess is that one. The end of the line can be read in two ways: "that one is no mere possession of mine (but my very being)", or "nothing else is mine."

4. Those who saw you swaying with coquetry said: "Either a child of the fairies or an angel; that is no human being."

5. My eye saw the sun, and the heart took it for you; but the soul said: "It does not have the cypress stature of your rose; nor is it the silent one (as the beloved is)." The end of the second line is obscure; the word "epsem" may point here to the silence of a beloved who gives the lover no answer.

6. How can I say to the rival, "Hunt that gazelle for me"? He is indeed a hunting dog, but he is not a trained dog.

7. Ever since Adlî became lord over the land of pain and affliction, sorrow and grief have not been able to make it their undisputed property; it is theirs no longer. The couplet can be read in two ways; with the reading "kalmadı" in the OR manuscript the sense becomes: "Ever since Adlî became lord of that land, no sorrow or grief has remained there."

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The ghazal (gazel) has seven couplets and is written in the remel metre "fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilün". The redif (refrain word) is the phrase "degül ol", "that is not", and it closes every couplet of the ghazal with a denial: that is no grief, that is no human being, that is no trained dog. The rhyme is the sound "-em": gam, nesnem, nem, nem, âdem, epsem, mu‘allem, müsellem. In Bayram's edition it is number 78 and it is found in all five manuscripts (OR, T, M1, M2, İBB), though not every couplet appears in every manuscript: the fourth couplet is missing from T, the fifth from İBB, and in OR the first line of the fifth couplet is missing. M2 reads "gamuñ" instead of "gamın" in the opening couplet, M1 and M2 read "ebsem" instead of "epsem", and OR reads "kalmadı" instead of "kılmadı" in the final couplet. It is not known to whom or when it was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The most striking feature of the ghazal is that the word "nem" carries three different loads in three couplets. In the opening couplet "nem olmak" means to be wet, while "nesnem" is "my thing"; in his study of the spelling of the OR manuscript Bayram glosses "nesne" as "object, thing; something, nothing". In the second couplet "nem" is again moisture and stands in the rhyme position. In the third couplet the same sound turns into "what is mine": the answer to the question "Neñ durur" (what do you have) ends with "nem degül ol". The entry of the same sound into the rhyme with different meanings is the figure called cinas (paronomasia). There is also a subtlety in the comparison of tears with the ocean: "kenar", in its dictionary sense, means both side and shore, so the shore of the ocean and the side of the tears meet in one word. Making the tears greater than the ocean is hyperbole (mübalağa).

The fourth and fifth couplets carry the beloved's beauty beyond the measure of humankind. Those who see the beloved swaying take him for a fairy or an angel. The fifth couplet sets up a scene of mistaken identity: the eye sees the sun, the heart takes it for the beloved, and the soul points out the difference. The sun, it is said, does not have the beloved's cypress stature. The phrase "epsem degül ol" at the end of the line is obscure; in the same study Bayram glosses "epsem" as "silent". On this basis the soul may be saying that the sun is not a being that keeps silent and gives the lover no answer, as the beloved does. This reading is an interpretation, and the meaning of the couplet is not certain.

In the sixth couplet the beloved is a gazelle and the rival a hunting dog. Likening the rival to a dog is common in divan poetry. "Kelb-i mu‘allem", in its dictionary sense, means a trained dog that brings the game back to its master. The poet says he cannot trust the rival to hunt the gazelle for him: the rival runs after the game but does not bring it to the lover; he keeps it for himself. There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) among hunt, gazelle, hunting dog and trained dog.

The final couplet uses the language of the state. Adlî calls himself the lord (mîr) of "the land of pain and affliction". "Milk-i müsellem", in its dictionary sense, is property that no one disputes and that belongs to its owner beyond question. The poet says that because he himself has become lord of this land, sorrow and grief have been unable to establish undisputed ownership there. There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) among lord, land and property. That a poet who was the real ruler of a country should call himself lord of a land of sorrows gives the couplet a further, notable tone.

Bibliography

  • Yavuz Bayram (ed.), Adlî Dîvânı (Dîvân-ı Sultân Bâyezîd-i Sânî), Ankara: Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yay., 2018, p. 116, poem no. 78 (manuscript information in the footnote on p. 116). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr
  • Yavuz Bayram, "Sultan İkinci Bâyezîd-i Velî (Adlî) Dîvânı'nın British Library Nüshasında İmlâ Husûsiyetleri", Turkish Studies 3/6 (Fall 2008), pp. 109-142 (glosses of "nesne" and "epsem" on p. 129).

Online sources