Original Persian Text

Metre: Fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün (remel)

Şukr ki āḫir dīdeem dīdār-i ān maḥbūbrā
Her ki bāşed ṭālib ez-cān bāyed ū maṭlūbrā
Ger şodem ‘āşiḳ be-rūy-i ḫūb-i ū men‘em mekon
‘Ayb nebved çun Ḫudā hem dōst dārī ḫūbrā
Mī neyāred dīd rūyet merdum-i çeşmem belī
Rizḳ kemter bāşed ārī merdum-i maḥcūbrā
Tā be-key tārāc-i ġam der-milk-i cān-i bī-dilān
Raḥm kon ber-cān-ı mā vu kem kon īn āşūbrā
Çun neyāyed dil be-derd u cān be-zaḥmet ez-ġameş
Miḥnet-i ‘Adlī eger gūyed kesī Eyyūbrā

In English

1. Thanks be that at last I have seen the face of that beloved. Whoever seeks with all his soul must reach what he seeks. (The word "bâyed" at the end of the line means, in its dictionary sense, "must, it is necessary"; Başpınar takes the line as "whoever seeks with his soul attains what he seeks".)

2. If I have fallen in love with that beautiful face, do not hold me back. Loving beauty is no fault, for God too loves the beautiful. (The couplet can be read in two ways: since the verb "dârî" is in the second person, Başpınar translates "it is no shame if you, like God, love the beautiful"; the line can also be understood as giving God's love of beauty as the justification for loving beauty.)

3. Yes, the pupil of my eye cannot bring itself to look at your face; surely the bashful one's portion is small. (In Persian "merdum" means both "pupil of the eye" and "person". "Merdum-i mahcûb" is therefore both a bashful person and the pupil kept veiled behind the eyelid; Başpınar also gives both senses together.)

4. How long will grief plunder the realm of the souls of those who have lost their hearts? Have mercy on our souls and lessen this turmoil. (The beloved is addressed. "Târâc" means, in its dictionary sense, plunder, and "âşûb" turmoil, disorder.)

5. If someone were to tell Job of the hardship Adlî suffers, Job's heart would no longer fall into pain, nor his soul into distress, from his own grief. (Adlî's ordeal is so great that even the prophet Job, remembered for his patience, would forget his own suffering on hearing of it. The couplet can be read in two ways: if "çûn" is taken in the sense of "how", the line becomes a question: "if they told Job of Adlî's ordeal, how could his heart not fall into pain and his soul into distress from that grief?" Başpınar's reading is followed here.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This is the first of Adlî's Persian ghazals. It has five couplets and is written in the remel metre "fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilün". The redif (refrain word) is the Persian particle "-râ"; the rhyme is the sound "-ûb": mahbûb, matlûb, hûb, mahcûb, âşûb and Eyyûb. The ghazal is number 154 in Yavuz Bayram's 2008 edition. According to the manuscript table in Bayram's 2018 edition, it is found in two of the five manuscripts, the OR manuscript in the British Library and the T manuscript in the Egyptian National Library. To whom and when it was written is not known.

According to Fatih Başpınar, the seventeen Persian poems of Bayezid II, made up of fourteen ghazals, one kıt‘a and two matlas, amount to roughly one tenth of all his poems. They were first published in Bayram's edition, but together with misreadings. In his 2012 article Başpınar classified these errors and gave examples, re-established the text and translated it into Turkish couplet by couplet. This ghazal appears twice among his examples. In the second couplet the reading "ne-bûd" (was not), which spoils both metre and sense, is corrected to "nebved" (is not). In the fourth couplet the manuscript plainly reads "tâ yekî", but Başpınar emends it, for the sake of meaning, to "tâ be-key" (how long). The text given here is Başpınar's corrected text.

Bayezid's interest in Persian and in the poets of Iran is also recorded in the biographical anthologies of poets (tezkire). Kınalızâde Hasan Çelebi relates that Bayezid sent gifts to Mevlânâ Câmî and Celâleddin Devvânî in Iran, and that Câmî in return sent kasides (qasidas) and letters. Bayezid's Persian ghazals are the counterpart of this interest in the sultan's own pen.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal opens with the joy of union. In the opening couplet "mahbûb" (the beloved) and "matlûb" (the sought) stand facing each other as two words of the same pattern, and the lover's thanks are tied to a general rule that whoever seeks with his soul will at last find what he seeks. The second line is spoken in the manner of a proverb, as a judgement valid for everyone.

The second couplet answers someone who reproaches the lover for loving beauty. The lover grounds the claim that loving beauty cannot be a fault on God's own love of the beautiful. In the third couplet joy gives way to shyness: the pupil of the eye dares not look at the beloved's face. The beauty of the couplet lies in the two senses of the word "merdum". The pupil is "mahcûb" both because it lies veiled under the eyelid and because it is too bashful to look. The saying "the bashful one's portion is small" is spoken on the one hand as a general rule, and on the other describes the scarcity of the glance, which is the eye's "portion". This double meaning creates a tevriye (double entendre) in the couplet.

The fourth couplet likens the soul to a realm. The souls of lovers who have lost their hearts are a country, and grief is an army plundering that country. The congruence of images (tenasüp) between "târâc" (plunder), "milk" (realm) and "âşûb" (turmoil) presents the pain of love as a scene of war. The beloved who is begged for mercy stands in the position of the ruler of this realm. When one remembers that the poem was written by a sultan, the irony of a voice begging someone else to calm the turmoil in the realm of the soul is evident in the couplet.

The closing couplet names the prophet Job, known for his patience. Adlî measures his own hardship against Job's and finds his own ordeal heavier. This is hyperbole (mübalağa) by way of allusion (telmih) to a prophet's story. In Başpınar's reading Job, hearing of Adlî's ordeal, forgets his own pain; if the line is read as a question, even Job grieves at this ordeal. Both readings arrive at the same point: the lover's pain exceeds the measure even of the very model of patience.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Yavuz Bayram (ed.), Adlî Dîvânı (Dîvân-ı Sultân Bâyezîd-i Sânî), Ankara: Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yay., 2018, pp. 30-32 (descriptions of the manuscripts and Table 4). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr
  • Kınalızâde Hasan Çelebi, Tezkiretü'ş-Şu'arâ, ed. Aysun Sungurhan, Ankara: Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yay., 2017 (e-book), pp. 131-132, entry on Sultan Bâyezîd. ekitap.ktb.gov.tr

Academic studies

  • Fatih Başpınar, "Sultan II. Bayezid'in Farsça Şiirleri Üzerine", Divan Edebiyatı Araştırmaları Dergisi 8 (2012), pp. 37-66, poem no. 1 (text and translation p. 50; corrections in the second and fourth couplets pp. 39-40 and 47). Bayram 2008, p. 359, poem no. 154.

Online sources