Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Cismümi eşküme ġarḳ eyleyeli dīdelerüm
Birbirinden n'ola farḳ olmaz ise baḥr u berüm
Nūr-ı ruḫsārına zülf-i siyehi ḥā’il olup
Şām-ı hicr içre belürmez olur oldı seḥerüm
Dehenüñ bir söz ile varlıġumı aldı tamām
Gerçi kim yoġ idi bir ẕerrece andan ḫaberüm
Ne ‘aceb baḥr olur menba‘ı kim eksilmez
Dür dişüñ yādına ḫarc eyledügümce güherüm
Tāc u taḫt u külehi terk idelüm ‘ışḳ içre
‘Adliyā şu‘le-i āhum yetire tāc-ı zerüm

In English

1. Ever since my eyes drowned my body in my tears, it is no wonder if my sea and my land can no longer be told apart.

2. When (the beloved's) black lock became a veil over the light of the cheek, my dawn no longer appeared in the evening of separation.

3. Your mouth took away my whole being with a single word; yet I had not the slightest knowledge of that mouth's existence. The couplet can be read in two ways: your mouth is so small that the lover never noticed it at all, or the lover had no idea that word was coming.

4. What a wondrous sea it is, whose source never diminishes however much of my jewels (my tears) I spend in remembering your pearl teeth.

5. Let us give up crown, throne and cap for the sake of love; O Adlî, the flame of my sighs is enough for me as a golden crown.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The ghazal (gazel) has five couplets and is written in the remel metre "fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilün". The rhyme is the sound "-er", and the redif (refrain word) is the first person singular possessive suffix "-üm" (my): dîdelerüm, berüm, seherüm, haberüm, güherüm, zerüm. It is number 95 in Bayram's edition and is found in all five manuscripts. The variants recorded in the edition are these: in the opening couplet M1, M2 and İBB read "çeşmümi" (my eye) instead of "cismümi" (my body); in the third couplet T has "yokdı" instead of "yoġ idi". The manuscripts diverge in the first line of the closing couplet: OR reads "taht-ı külehi"; in T, M1 and M2 the line runs "Tâc u tahtı güle terk eyleyelüm", that is, crown and throne are left to the rose. It is not known to whom or when it was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal opens with images of tears and the sea and does not leave this circle until the end. In the opening couplet the lover's eyes have drowned his body in tears; sea and land can no longer be told apart. The expression "bahr u ber" (sea and land) is a phrase for the whole world; here it is applied to the lover's own being and becomes "my sea and my land". There is antithesis between sea and land. The edition's reading "cismümi" describes the body sinking into water; in the reading "çeşmümi" of the other three manuscripts it is the eye that drowns in its own tears.

In the second couplet face and lock correspond to day and night. The beloved's cheek is light, the lock is black; when the lock covers the cheek, the lover's dawn fails to rise in the evening of separation. There is antithesis between "nûr" (light) and "siyeh" (black), and between "şâm" (evening) and "seher" (the hour before dawn). The third couplet is a play on words built on being and nothingness. With a single word the beloved's mouth has taken away the lover's "being" (varlık), yet the lover had not "an atom's worth" of knowledge of that mouth. The words "varlık" and "yok" (non-existent) stand side by side; the word "zerre" (atom, mote), by stressing smallness, supports the reading in which the mouth is too small to be seen.

The fourth couplet brings back the sea of the opening couplet. The lover's eye is a sea whose source never runs dry. Each time he remembers the beloved's pearl-like teeth the lover spends "güher" (jewels); these jewels are tears. There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) among "bahr" (sea), "dür" (pearl) and "güher": the pearl comes from the sea, the tear from the eye. The contrast between spending and not diminishing gives the couplet an air of wonder.

The closing couplet (makta) is the most striking in the ghazal. The lover proposes giving up "tâc u taht u küleh", that is, crown, throne and cap, for the sake of love, and says that the flame of his sighs will be enough for him as a golden crown. A comparison is drawn between the flame of the sigh and the yellow-red gleam of a golden crown. In divan poetry crown and throne are familiar symbols of worldly sovereignty; but the fact that the man who wrote this couplet really was the owner or heir of the throne lends particular weight to the talk of renouncing sovereignty for love. There is no information as to whether the couplet was written in the years of his princely governorship in Amasya or in the years of his reign. In the reading "Tâc u tahtı güle terk eyleyelüm" of T, M1 and M2, crown and throne are left to the rose; in this reading beauty and spring are put in the place of sovereignty.

Bibliography

  • Yavuz Bayram (ed.), Adlî Dîvânı (Dîvân-ı Sultân Bâyezîd-i Sânî), Ankara: Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yay., 2018, p. 133, poem no. 95 (manuscript information in the footnote on the same page). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr