Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Ol mehüñ her gice kim kūyında efġān eyledüm
İtlerine derd-i ser virmekle nālān eyledüm
Ḫastedür dil kirpügüñ zaḫmından ammā bāk yoḳ
Çün lebüñ tiryākini derdine dermān eyledüm
Yaş dükendükçe gözümden ḳan olur her dem revān
Leblerüñ yādına çeşmüm baḥr ile kān eyledüm
Ten ġubārı dāmenüñe irmesün diyü revān
Gözlerüm yaşın anuñ üstine bārān eyledüm
Gülşen-i vaṣluñ ḫazān-ı hicr ile ceng itmege
Ġoncalarla şāḫ-ı gülden tīr ü peykān eyledüm
Baḥr-ı eşkümde dişi yādına dür yaş olıcaḳ
Kirpigümi anda ‘Adlī şāḫ-ı mercān eyledüm

In English

1. Every night that I cried out in the street of that moon-faced beloved, I made even her dogs moan by giving them a headache. (Even the dogs that guard the beloved's door are troubled by the lover's lament that lasts all night.)

2. The heart is sick from the wound of your eyelash, but it has no fear; for I have made the antidote of your lip the cure for its pain. (The eyelash is an arrow and wounds; the lip is the antidote that heals the wound.)

3. Whenever the tears run out, blood flows from my eye at every moment; for the memory of your lips I have made my eye both a sea and a mine. (The sea yields pearls and the mine yields red ruby: the white tears answer to pearls, the bloody tears to the ruby that resembles the beloved's lip.)

4. So that the dust of my body should not reach and soil your skirt, I at once made the tears of my eyes a rain upon it. (Rain settles dust; this is why the lover sheds his tears.)

5. So that the rose garden of union with you could fight against the autumn of separation, I made arrows from the rose branch and arrowheads from the buds. (The rose branch resembles the shaft of an arrow, the pointed buds the iron head at its tip.)

6. In the sea of my tears, when my tears became pearls at the memory of her teeth, there, O Adlî, I made my eyelash a branch of coral. (The teeth are likened to pearls; the eyelash stained with bloody tears to a branch of red coral in the sea.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The ghazal (gazel) has six couplets and is written in the remel metre "fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilün". Its redif (refrain word) is "eyledüm" (I made), and the rhyme is the sound "-ân": efgân, nâlân, dermân, kân, bârân, peykân, mercân. According to Bayram's footnote, the redif appears as "eylerem" (I make) in the T, M1 and M2 manuscripts; in these copies the lover does not recount what he did in the past but lists what he does at all times. It is number 85 in the edition and is found in all five manuscripts (OR 21a-21b, T 27a-27b, M1 27b-28a, M2 21b-22a, İBB 14b), although the last couplet is missing in M1 and M2. The other variants are minor: in the opening couplet OR and İBB read "derdüñi" (your pain) instead of "derd-i ser", İBB has "tâlân" instead of "nâlân"; in the fifth couplet M1 and M2 write "tîr-i peykân" (an arrow with a head) instead of "tîr ü peykân" (arrow and arrowhead). It is not known to whom or when it was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

In every couplet of the ghazal the lover turns one thing into another, and the redif "eyledüm" carries this act of transformation: he turns his lament into a sound that makes the dogs moan, the lip into an antidote, the eye into a sea and a mine, tears into rain, the rose branch into an arrow, the eyelash into coral. In the opening couplet the dogs in the beloved's street are, in divan poetry, the creatures that guard her door and keep the lover away from it. The lover's lament gives them "derd-i ser", in its dictionary sense a headache. In the reading "derdüñi" in OR and İBB, the lover tells the dogs of the beloved's pain and makes them moan too; in this reading the dogs come to share his suffering.

In the second couplet the eyelash and the lip are set against each other. The eyelash wounds like an arrow, the lip heals the wound. "Tiryâk", in its dictionary sense, is a remedy used against poison; the wound opened by the eyelash is thus imagined as a poisoning, and the lip becomes its cure. There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) among sick, wound, pain, antidote and cure.

The third and sixth couplets are two parts of the same picture. In the third couplet the eye becomes both a sea and a mine; the sea gives the pearl, the mine the red stone. When the tears run out, blood flows in their place, and these bloody tears are tied to the memory of the beloved's red lip. In the sixth couplet the sea of tears appears again: the memory of the beloved's teeth turns the tears into pearls, and the eyelashes stained with bloody tears stand in that sea like branches of red coral. The congruence of images among the words sea, pearl, coral and mine is the most striking feature of the ghazal; the likening of the teeth to pearls and the lip to a red stone ties this congruence to the beloved's face.

The fourth couplet is an example of hüsn-i talil (a fanciful attribution of cause): the real reason the lover sheds tears is the pain of love, but the poet invents a graceful cause for it. The lover's body is earth and dust; so that this dust should not soil the beloved's skirt, the lover pours his tears down like rain and settles it. The word "revân" means "flowing" in the third couplet and "at once, immediately" in the fourth; the use of the same word with two different meanings in two successive couplets is noteworthy.

The fifth couplet sets up a battle scene. Union is a rose garden, separation the autumn that comes to wither it. To defend the garden the lover makes arrows from the rose branch and arrowheads from the buds. There is antithesis between the rose garden and autumn, between union and separation, and a congruence of images among arrow, arrowhead and battle. The thorny, thin and long shape of the rose branch is likened to an arrow, and the pointed bud to an arrowhead. The reverse of the same image appears in the final couplet of Adlî's ghazal no. 86: there the arrowheads lodged in the lover's breast turn into buds.

Bibliography

  • Yavuz Bayram (ed.), Adlî Dîvânı (Dîvân-ı Sultân Bâyezîd-i Sânî), Ankara: Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yay., 2018, p. 123, poem no. 85 (manuscript information in the footnote on p. 123; for the poems common to all manuscripts, introduction, Table 3). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr