Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Serv-i ḳaddüñ yādına yaşumı seyl-āb eyledüm
Ḳaddümi ol cūybār üstinde dolāb eyledüm
Ruḫlaruñ vaṣfın güneşden rūşen itdüm iy ḳamer
Dişlerüñ vaṣfında şi‘rüm dürr-i ḫūş-āb eyledüm
Şöyle inceldüm miyānuñ fikriyile dōstum
Kim vücūdum ża‘f ile ‘ālemde nā-yāb eyledüm
Görinen encüm degüldür sīnesi pür-yāredür
Tīr-i āhı ol ḳadar kim çarḫa pür-tāb eyledüm
Cān-ı şīrini ki la‘lüñ yādına ḳıldum fedā
Rāḥat u ārām ile gūyā şeker-ḫᵛāb eyledüm
Zülfüñüñ sevdālarında ‘aḳlı şeydā eyledüm
Miḫnetüñ tāb-ı tebinde cānı bī-tāb eyledüm
Şol ḳadar kim aġladum bu sīne-i ṣad-çākde
Tīri zaḫmın ‘Adliyā gül-berk-i sīr-āb eyledüm

In English

1. Remembering your cypress stature, I turned my tears into a flood; and my own stature I made into a water-wheel (turning ceaselessly) above that stream.

2. O moon-faced one, in describing your cheeks I showed them brighter than the sun; and in describing your teeth I made my poetry a lustrous pearl of fine water.

3. My friend, I grew so thin from thinking of the slenderness of your waist that through weakness I made my being a thing not to be found in the world (I became invisible).

4. What appear are not stars; the breast of the sky is full of wounds, for I shot the arrow of my sighs at the heavens with such force. The couplet can be read in two ways: "pür-tâb", in its dictionary sense, means both "very strong, drawn taut" and "fiery, shining"; in the second reading the glitter of the stars is the fiery wounds left by the arrow of sighs.

5. Remembering the ruby of your lip (your red, sweet lip), I sacrificed my sweet life; it was as if I had sunk into a sweet sleep in comfort and peace.

6. In the passion (sevdâ) for your lock of hair I drove my reason mad; in the burning fever of the torment you gave I left my soul without strength.

7. O Adlî, I wept so much in this breast torn in a hundred places that I turned the wound opened by the arrow (shot by the beloved) into a rose petal drenched with water.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The ghazal (gazel) has seven 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 "-âb": seyl-âb, dolâb, hûş-âb, nâ-yâb, pür-tâb, şeker-hâb, bî-tâb, sîr-âb. It is number 93 in Bayram's edition and is found in all five manuscripts. The variants recorded in the edition are these: in the third couplet M1 reads "beyânuñ" (your speech) instead of "miyânuñ" (your waist); in the fifth couplet T reads "ârâmuña" instead of "ârâm ile"; in the last couplet OR and İBB have "tîr" instead of "tîri". In the T manuscript the second lines of the sixth and seventh couplets have changed places. It is not known to whom or when it was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The subject of the ghazal is the lover's own state, and almost every couplet is built in the past tense as "I made this into that". While describing the beloved's beauty, the lover lists the transformations his own body has undergone: tears become a flood, the body turns into a water-wheel, thinness reaches nothingness, the soul sinks into sleep. The fact that most of the rhyme words are connected with water and brightness ("seyl-âb", "hûş-âb", "sîr-âb") ties together the ghazal's world of images.

In the opening couplet a congruence of images (tenasüp) is set up among cypress, stream and water-wheel. The beloved's stature is likened to a cypress; the lover's tears have become a stream (cûybâr), and his bent body has been turned into a water-wheel revolving above this stream. "Dolap", in its dictionary sense, is the wheel that raises water; the lover is likened to something that, turning endlessly, both pours out water (tears) and cannot leave its place. In the second couplet the cheek is likened to the sun and the beloved to the moon (kamer); there is a congruence of images among "rûşen" (bright), "sun" and "kamer". Likening teeth to pearls is a common comparison; here the poet goes a step further and says that he has made the very poem describing the teeth a pearl.

The third couplet joins the slenderness of the beloved's waist to the thinness of the lover. The waist is so slender that the lover who thinks of it grows thin as well and at last becomes "nâ-yâb", that is, not to be found. In the fourth couplet the stars in the sky are interpreted as wounds opened in the breast of the heavens by the arrows of the lover's sighs; this is a way of giving an imaginary cause for a real phenomenon and is known in divan poetry as hüsn-i talil (fanciful aetiology). In the fifth couplet the words "şîrîn" (sweet), "la‘l" (lip) and "şeker" (sugar) come together around sweetness; giving up one's life is presented not as death but as a sweet sleep.

The sixth couplet is the densest in the ghazal in terms of sound play. "Sevdâ", in its dictionary sense, means both intense love and, in old medicine, black bile and the melancholy it causes; when mentioned together with the black lock of hair, both meanings enter the couplet. "Şeydâ" and "sevdâ" are close in sound. In the second line there is a pun (cinas) between "tâb-ı teb" (the heat of fever) and "bî-tâb" (without strength), built on different meanings of the same word. The closing couplet (makta), by likening the breast wound soaked with tears to a rose petal drenched with water, ties the red of blood to the colour of the rose and brings the ghazal back to the water imagery of the opening couplet.

Bibliography

  • Yavuz Bayram (ed.), Adlî Dîvânı (Dîvân-ı Sultân Bâyezîd-i Sânî), Ankara: Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yay., 2018, p. 131, poem no. 93 (manuscript information in the footnote on the same page). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr
  • Türk Dil Kurumu, Güncel Türkçe Sözlük, entries "dolap" and "sevda", https://sozluk.gov.tr/

Online sources