Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Ben beni yār işiginde gāh derbān eylerem
Bu ḫayāl ile gehī kendümi ṣulṭān eylerem
Bu müferriḥle güşād olmaz göñül ġamgīnligi
Bāde-i la‘lüñ ḫayālātında ḥayrān eylerem
Gül yüzi ḳarşusına dil bülbülin nālān idüp
Gülşen-i kūyını cāna bāġ-ı Rıḍvān eylerem
Ġamzeñ oḳları irerse kimseye bildürmezem
Ben ki sīnemde cefā tīġini pinhān eylerem
Güller açup dāġlardan ġoncalar peykāndan
Sīnemi ben ‘Adliyā tāze gülistān eylerem

In English

1. At times I make myself a doorkeeper at the beloved's threshold; with this fancy, at times I make myself a sultan. (To be a doorkeeper at the beloved's door is, for the lover, equal to being a sultan.)

2. The heart's sorrow is not relieved by this cordial; I lose myself (or: I leave the heart bewildered) in fancies of the wine of your ruby lip. The couplet can be read in two ways: "this cordial" is the fancy of sultanship in the first couplet, and when that fancy fails to lift the sorrow the lover takes refuge in the wine of the lip; or "this" refers to wine, and the lover puts the fancy of the lip in place of the wine that cannot dispel sorrow. With the reading "bir" in M1 and M2, the line means "the heart's sorrow is not relieved by any cordial".

3. Making the nightingale of my heart moan before her rose face, I make the rose garden of her street a garden of paradise for the soul.

4. If the arrows of your glance strike me, I let no one know of it; for I am one who keeps the sword of cruelty hidden in his breast.

5. O Adlî, making roses bloom from the brands on my wounds and buds from the arrowheads (lodged in my breast), I make my breast a fresh rose garden. (The red burn marks resemble roses, the arrowheads stuck in the breast resemble buds.)

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". Its redif (refrain word) is "eylerem" (I make), and the rhyme is the sound "-ân": derbân, sultân, hayrân, Rıdvân, pinhân, gülistân. It is number 86 in the edition and is found in all five manuscripts (OR 21b, T 28a-28b, M1 28b-29a, M2 22b, İBB 15a). There are variants in two places: in the second couplet M1 and M2 read "bir" (a, any) instead of "bu" (this), and in the final couplet OR has "sen" (you) instead of "ben" (I); in this reading it is the beloved herself who turns the breast into a rose garden. It is not known to whom or when it was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet is one of the clearest examples of a situation often found in Adlî's poems. In divan poetry the lover is the slave and the beloved the sultan; the author of this ghazal, however, was a real sultan. The lover imagines himself as a "derbân", that is, a doorkeeper, at the beloved's threshold, and this fancy makes him a sultan. The antithesis between doorkeeping and sultanship carries the couplet: to perform the lowest service at the beloved's door is, in the lover's eyes, the throne itself. Coming from the pen of a padishah, the couplet ends up placing sovereignty below a service at the beloved's threshold.

In the second couplet "müferrih", in its dictionary sense, is something that gives relief and gladdens the heart; "güşâd" means being opened or relieved, and "hayrân" bewildered, beside oneself. The cordial's failure to relieve the heart's sorrow is set against the way the wine of the lip carries the lover beyond himself. "Bâde-i la‘l" means both red wine and the ruby-coloured lip; this likening of lip and wine is very common in divan poetry.

The third couplet uses the image of the rose and the nightingale: the beloved's face is the rose, the lover's heart the nightingale moaning before that rose. Through this moaning the beloved's street becomes a rose garden, and that rose garden becomes the "bâğ-ı Rıdvân". According to the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, Rıdvân is the angel regarded as the guardian of paradise; "the garden of Rıdvân" therefore means paradise. There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) among rose, nightingale, rose garden and garden.

The fourth couplet describes the lover's endurance. The beloved's "gamze", her languid glance, shoots arrows; the lover tells no one of the wound of these arrows, because he already carries the sword of cruelty hidden in his breast. There is a congruence of images between arrow and sword; "bildürmezem" (I let no one know) and "pinhân" (hidden) repeat the same idea in the two lines.

The final couplet turns the pains of the first four couplets into a garden. "Dâğ", in its dictionary sense, is a brand, the mark burned with a red-hot iron; in divan poetry the wounds of love on the lover's breast are likened to roses because of their red colour. The arrowheads lodged in the breast, the "peykân"s, resemble buds. Thus the breast full of wounds becomes a "tâze gülistân", a fresh rose garden. This image forms a reverse link with a couplet in Adlî's ghazal no. 85: there the lover makes arrowheads from buds, here the arrowheads turn into buds.

Bibliography

  • Yavuz Bayram (ed.), Adlî Dîvânı (Dîvân-ı Sultân Bâyezîd-i Sânî), Ankara: Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yay., 2018, p. 124, poem no. 86 (manuscript information in the footnote on p. 124). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr
  • "Rıdvân", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/ridvan.

Online sources