Original Persian Text

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

Ey ḫatet ḫūb u ruḫ-i māhet nikū
Nergis-i mestet be-‘ālem fitne-cū
Yek ser-i mū vaṣf-i ḥusnet key tevān
Ger zebānī bāşedem her tār-i mū
Ez-mey-i la‘l-i tu men mestem mudām
Kerde bā-mestān-i ‘ālem guft u gū
Bī-lebet ḫūn şod derūn-i sīne dil
Mī şeved mey ṣāf ārī der-sebū
Tā be-key bāşed dil-i ‘Adlī bütā
Der-ḫam-i çevgān-i zülfet hemçu gū

In English

1. O beloved whose down is lovely and whose moon face is fair, your drunken narcissus eye seeks mischief in the world. ("Hat" means in its dictionary sense both script and the fine down newly appearing on the faces of the young. "Nergis-i mest", the drunken narcissus, describes in divan poetry the languid, heavy-lidded eye.)

2. Even if every hair of mine were a tongue, how could I manage to describe even a hair's tip of your beauty?

3. I am forever drunk on the wine of your ruby lips and keep up talk with the drunkards of the world. ("Guft u gû" means in its dictionary sense words and conversation, talk back and forth.)

4. Deprived of your lips, the heart has turned to blood inside my breast; yes, wine too settles clear in the jar. (The breast is likened to a jar, and the heart turned to blood within it to the wine that settles there.)

5. O idol-like beauty, how long will Adlî's heart stay like a ball in the curve of your polo-stick curl? (Çevgân is in its dictionary sense the game in which mounted players strike a ball with crooked-ended sticks, and also the stick of that game. The curling lock is likened to the polo stick, and the lover's heart to the ball tossed before it.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This is Adlî's tenth Persian ghazal. It has five couplets and is written in the remel metre "fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilün". The ghazal has no redif (refrain word); the rhyme is the sound "-û": nikû, fitne-cû, mû, gû, sebû and gû again. "Gû" serves as the rhyme in two couplets with two different meanings: in the third couplet, within "guft u gû" (talk), it means "word", and in the closing couplet, within "hemçu gû" (like a ball), it means "ball". The ghazal is number 163 in Bayram's 2008 edition. According to the table in Bayram's 2018 edition it is found only in the T manuscript in the Egyptian National Library. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Fatih Başpınar corrects both the opening and the closing couplet of this ghazal. In the opening couplet Bayram had read "Ey hatet-i hûb u ruh mâhet nikû". According to Başpınar the construction linking "hat" and "hûb" spoils the metre, while omitting the construction linking "ruh" and "mâh" spoils both metre and meaning; the correct form is "Ey hatet hûb u ruh-i mâhet nikû". In the closing couplet Bayram's readings "betâ" and "hicv-gû" (satirist) made no sense. Başpınar reads "betâ" as "butâ" (O idol), and for "hicv-gû", on looking at the manuscript, he notices a missing letter "mîm" and corrects the word to "hemçu gû" (like a ball). He adds that the words curl and polo stick should in any case have called a ball to mind. By Başpınar's count the Persian poems make up roughly one tenth of all Bayezid's poems; the text here is given in the form he corrected.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet describes the beloved's face through three features: the down, the moon face and the languid eye. This eye is "fitne-cû", that is, it seeks mischief; the beloved's glance is imagined as a force that throws the world into turmoil. Tying the narcissus to the eye, and through the word "mest" to drunkenness, is like a prelude to the wine imagery of the following couplets.

The second couplet treats the indescribability of beauty. Even if every hair of the lover were a tongue, not even a hair's tip of the beloved's beauty could be described. The word "mû" (hair) occurs in both lines: "ser-i mû" (a hair's tip) and "târ-i mû" (a strand of hair). This repetition brings together in one word the smallest measure and the greatest number of tongues and turns the couplet into a hyperbole (mübalağa). Likening a strand of hair to a tongue is also a known simile in divan poetry.

The third and fourth couplets are built with images taken from the wine gathering. The lover is constantly drunk on the wine of the beloved's lips. In the fourth couplet the heart, parted from the beloved's lips, has turned to blood inside the breast. The second line supports this with an example: wine too settles clear in the jar. The likening of the breast to a jar and of blood to wine, and the way the second line is tied to the first like a proof, is a manner of speech close to irsal-i mesel (illustrating with a proverbial example). There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) between ruby, wine, drunk and jar.

The closing couplet ends with an image from the game of polo. The beloved's curling lock is the polo stick, and Adlî's heart is a ball tossed in its curve. Addressing the beloved as "butâ" (O idol) is a known form of address expressing a love of beauty that amounts to worship. The lover asks how much longer his heart will be tossed about in this game. This couplet, which remained incomprehensible without Başpınar's correction, gains with it one of the clearest images of the ghazal.

Bibliography

  • Fatih Başpınar, "Sultan II. Bayezid'in Farsça Şiirleri Üzerine", Divan Edebiyatı Araştırmaları Dergisi 8 (2012), pp. 37-66, poem no. 10 (text and translation p. 59; correction in the opening couplet p. 40, correction in the closing couplet pp. 43-44). Bayram 2008, p. 367, poem no. 163.
  • 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

Online sources