Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün

Ḳaşuñ sevdāsile peyveste cismüm çün hilāl itdüm
Viṣāl itdüm ṭama‘ senden ‘aceb fikr-i muḥāl itdüm
Ġubār-ı ġam ḫaṭuñ ẓāhir olalı ṭutdı dil levḥin
Ne ḫaṭ kim çekdüm evrāḳa ġamından ḥasb-i ḥāl itdüm
Ġamuñ derdine düşmekden devā-yı vaṣluñ umardum
Cefā yükini çekmekden vefāñı iḥtimāl itdüm
Hevāda toz degüldür ẓāhir olan gerd-i rāhuñda
Bu ḫākī cismi raḫşuñ ayaġında pāy-māl itdüm
Geh öldüm ġamzesinden geh lebinden tāze cān buldum
Ṭarīḳ-i ‘ışḳ içinde ‘Adliyā tebdīl-i ḥāl itdüm

In English

1. Through passion for your eyebrow I have made my body ceaselessly like the crescent moon (thin and bent); I hoped for union with you, how strange, I fell into an impossible thought.

2. Ever since the down on your face (hatt) appeared, the dust of grief has covered the tablet of my heart; whatever line I drew on the pages, I made it an account of my state (hasbihal) because of grief for you.

3. Falling into the pain of grief for you, I used to hope for the remedy of union; bearing the burden of cruelty, I thought it possible that you would show faithfulness.

4. The dust that appears in the air on your path is not (ordinary) dust; I had this earthen body trampled under the hooves of your horse and turned into dust.

5. Now I died from (the beloved's) sidelong glance, now I found fresh life from the lip; O Adlî, on the path of love I passed from one state to another.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The ghazal (gazel) has five couplets and is written in the hezec metre "mefâ‘îlün mefâ‘îlün mefâ‘îlün mefâ‘îlün". Its redif (refrain word) is "itdüm" (I made), and the rhyme is the sound "-âl": hilâl, muhâl, hasb-i hâl, ihtimâl, pây-mâl, tebdîl-i hâl. It is worth noting that the word "hâl" enters the rhyme in the second and fifth couplets within different compounds. It is number 97 in Bayram's edition and is found in all five manuscripts (OR 23a, T 31b-32a, M1 32a-32b, M2 25b, İBB 16a). The manuscript variants are concentrated in the second couplet: M2 reads "hatın" instead of "hatuñ", in OR the word "levhin" is missing, and in İBB the first line runs "Hatuñ zâhir olalı tutdı dil milkin gubâr-ı gam". In the edition's text the second line has "ġamından" printed; in the footnote, however, the main reading is given as "ġamuñdan" and "ġamından" is assigned to T, M2 and İBB. The text has been left here as printed in the edition. In the fourth couplet M1 reads "hâlî" (empty) instead of "hâkî" (earthen). It is not known to whom or when it was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal lists in the past tense the states the lover has passed through on the path of love; the "itdüm" of the redif reports in each couplet something the lover has done to himself or to his words. In the opening couplet the familiar comparison between eyebrow and crescent is built from the opposite direction: as if wishing to resemble the beloved's eyebrow, the lover forces his own body into the shape of a crescent, that is, thin and bent. "Peyveste", in its dictionary sense, means "joined, attached" and "continuous"; mentioned together with the eyebrow, it also calls up two eyebrows meeting in the middle, so the word suggests both the constancy of the lover's state and the shape of the brow. In the second line the lover says that he hoped for union and himself calls this a "muhâl", that is, an impossible thought.

The second couplet is built on words connected with writing. "Hat" means both the fine down on the beloved's face and writing, and both senses work together in the couplet. "Levh" is a tablet for writing on, "evrâk" pages, and "hat çekmek" to write a line. "Gubâr", in its dictionary sense, is dust; the same word also occurs in the name of a script written in very small letters (gubârî). The heart thus turns into a writing tablet on which the dust of grief has settled, and every line the lover writes becomes an account of his own state (hasb-i hâl). There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) among "hat", "levh", "evrâk" and "gubâr".

The third couplet is built on two pairs of antithesis: pain and remedy, cruelty and faithfulness. The more the lover suffers, the more he hopes for a cure; the more he carries the burden of cruelty, the more he thinks the beloved will show faithfulness. The couplet does not state the outcome; only hope and possibility remain. In the fourth couplet an imaginary cause is given for a real sight (hüsn-i talil, fanciful aetiology): the dust rising into the air on the beloved's path is not ordinary dust but the lover's body, trampled under the hooves of the beloved's horse and turned to dust. "Rahş", in its dictionary sense, means horse and is known as the name of Rüstem's horse. The word "hevâ", in its dictionary sense, means both air and desire; the second sense agrees with the theme of love in the couplet. There is a congruence of images among "toz" (dust), "gerd" (dust) and "hâk" (earth).

The closing couplet (makta) gathers up the states of the ghazal. The beloved's glance kills, the lip gives life again; the antithesis between death and fresh life says that the path of love is full of passages from one state to another. "Tebdîl-i hâl", in its dictionary sense, means a change of state; the word "tebdil" is also used in the sense of changing one's clothes in disguise, but the main sense in the couplet is the lover's going back and forth between death and revival.

Bibliography

  • Yavuz Bayram (ed.), Adlî Dîvânı (Dîvân-ı Sultân Bâyezîd-i Sânî), Ankara: Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yay., 2018, p. 135, poem no. 97 (manuscript information in the footnote on the same page). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr
  • Türk Dil Kurumu, Güncel Türkçe Sözlük, entries "hasbihâl", "muhal" and "tebdil gezmek", https://sozluk.gov.tr/

Online sources