Original Persian Text

Metre: Mef‘ūlü mefā‘īlü mefā‘īlü fe‘ūlün (hezec)

Ey ḥāṣıl-i ‘omrem zi-ġamet nāle vu āhī
Cuz derd-i tuem nīst be-her ḥāl penāhī
Ḫvāhem ki konem āyine-i rūḥ çu bīnem
Ey dōst nişān-i sum-i esb-i tu be-rāhī
Ey dil mekon endīşe zi-cān dāden u binger
Der-‘izzet-i ṣaydī ki şeved kuşte-i şāhī
Her laḥẓa şeved zulf-i tuem māni‘-i dīdār
Yā Rab çi belā mī keşem ez-dest-i siyāhī
Sulṭān-i cihān gerded eger ḫod binevāzī
‘Adlī dil-i āzurde-i ḫodrā be-nigāhī

In English

1. O beloved, from grief for whom the whole gain of my life is moaning and sighs, whatever my state may be I have no refuge but the pain you give.

2. O friend, when I see the print of your horse's hoof on a road, I wish to make it the mirror of my soul. (The couplet can be read in two ways. Başpınar translates "to see the print of your horse's hoof on the road I ought to acquire a mirror of the soul/a pure heart"; the order of the lines, however, also gives the sense of making the print seen on the road into the mirror of the soul. "Sum" means in its dictionary sense hoof.)

3. O heart, do not fear giving up the soul; look at the honour won by the prey that a shah has slain.

4. Your curl keeps me from seeing your face at every moment; O Lord, what afflictions I suffer at the hands of a black one. ("Siyâhî" means in its dictionary sense both blackness, a dark shape, and a black-skinned person; Başpınar translates "at the hands of a black man". The dark curl is like a guard protecting the face.)

5. If you soothe Adlî's wounded heart with a single glance, he will become the sultan of the world. (Başpınar gives two equivalents, "spare/caress"; the verb "nevâhten" means in its dictionary sense to caress, to console.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This is the fourteenth and last of Adlî's Persian ghazals. It has five couplets and is written in the hezec metre "mef‘ûlü mefâ‘îlü mefâ‘îlü fe‘ûlün". The ghazal has no separate redif (refrain word); the rhyme is the sound "-âhî": âhî, penâhî, râhî, şâhî, siyâhî and nigâhî. The ghazal is number 167 in Bayram's 2008 edition. According to the table in Bayram's 2018 edition it is found in two manuscripts: T in the Egyptian National Library and M2, copied by Ali Emîrî Efendi. The final couplet Bayram gives for the T manuscript is the closing couplet of this ghazal; that is, in T the ghazal stands at the end of Adlî's poems. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Fatih Başpınar cites the opening couplet of this ghazal as an example of construction errors. Bayram had read "be-her hâl-i penâhî" in the second line. According to Başpınar this construction was introduced to supply the short syllable the metre needs after the word "hâl", and it spoils the meaning; the possibility of reading the word with a lengthened vowel should have been considered. The correct reading is "be-her hâl penâhî". Because the T manuscript contains all the Persian ghazals, it is the main source for Bayezid's Persian poetry; according to Başpınar these poems make up roughly one tenth of all the sultan's poems.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal opens with an account of the lover's life. From grief for the beloved, the whole gain of life is moaning and sighs, yet the only place the lover can take refuge in is this same pain. The words "hâsıl" (gain) and "penâh" (refuge) make suffering something both lost and sought as a shelter. This is another way of expressing the idea of pain and cure also seen in the earlier ghazals.

The second couplet sets a scene in which the beloved is imagined on horseback. The print of the horse's hoof is seen on the road, and the lover wishes to make this print the mirror of his soul. In Başpınar's reading, on the other hand, the lover wishes to acquire a pure heart, a mirror of the soul, in order to be able to see this print. In both readings a small trace left on the road the beloved has passed carries great value for the lover. There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) between mirror, print and seeing.

The third couplet is the most meaningful of the ghazal. The lover tells his heart not to fear giving up the soul, for the prey a shah hunts wins honour. The beloved is a shah on the hunt, and the lover is the prey. This relation between prey and shah is a known image in divan poetry; but when one remembers that the author of the couplet really was a sultan, the irony becomes clear. Here Bayezid describes himself as the prey of a shah. In the fourth couplet the beloved's dark curl prevents the lover from seeing the face. The word "siyâhî", expressing both blackness and a black-skinned guard, turns the curl into a sentry keeping watch before the face.

The closing couplet is one of the clearest examples of the exchange of servant and sultan in Adlî's poems. If the beloved soothes Adlî's wounded heart with a glance, Adlî becomes "the sultan of the world". A ruler who in reality bore the title of sultan of the world tying sovereignty to a single glance of the beloved sets up a comparison between rule and love. The contrast between "sultân-ı cihân" (sultan of the world) and "dil-i âzürde" (wounded heart) rests the couplet on this exchange.

Bibliography

  • Fatih Başpınar, "Sultan II. Bayezid'in Farsça Şiirleri Üzerine", Divan Edebiyatı Araştırmaları Dergisi 8 (2012), pp. 37-66, poem no. 14 (text and translation p. 63; correction in the opening couplet p. 42). Bayram 2008, p. 371, poem no. 167.
  • Yavuz Bayram (ed.), Adlî Dîvânı (Dîvân-ı Sultân Bâyezîd-i Sânî), Ankara: Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yay., 2018, pp. 30-33 (descriptions of the manuscripts and Table 4; final couplet of the T manuscript p. 32; the Persian section in M2 p. 33). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr

Online sources