Original Persian Text

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

Ey ki ruḫsāret gul u ḳadd-i tu çun serv-i sehīst
Sidre bā-şimşād-i ḳaddet der-makām-i kūtehīst
Tīġ çun ābet be-ḫalḳ-i teşnegān-i la‘l-i tū
Bih zi-āb-i Ḫıżr u ḫoşter ez-dem-i Rūhullahīst
Her ki şod ġā’ib zi-ḫod der-‘işḳ-i meh-rūyān dilā
Nezd-i erbāb-i ḥaḳīḳat ez-kemāl-i āgehīst
Der-hevā-yi ḳāmetet k’ān hest serv-i bāġ-i ḫuld
Ḳumrī īnek ḫoş nişeste ber-ser-i serv-i sehīst
Ger tu ber-‘Ādlī cefā vu cevr-i bī-ḥād mī konī
Ḫoş mekon billāh ki eknūn minnet-i ū ān rehīst

In English

1. O you whose cheek is a rose and whose stature is like an upright cypress; even the Sidre tree falls short beside your boxwood stature. (The Sidre is, in its dictionary sense, the tree believed to stand at the boundary of the seventh heaven; the boxwood is a tree noted for its straight form. The beloved's stature is shown as taller than the loftiest tree of heaven.)

2. For the people who thirst for your ruby lips, your sword gleaming like water is better than the water of Khidr and sweeter than the breath of Rûhullah. (The water of life that Khidr drank grants immortality; the breath of Rûhullah, that is Jesus, raises the dead. For the lover, dying by the beloved's sword is worth more than the life these two bestow. "Âb" means water in its dictionary sense and is also used for the gleam of a blade.)

3. O heart, whoever loses himself in love for the moon-faced is, in the eyes of the people of truth, at the height of awareness.

4. Longing for your stature, which is the cypress of the garden of paradise, the turtle-dove has now settled pleasantly on the top of the upright cypress. (Yearning for the beloved's stature, the dove perches on the cypress that resembles it.)

5. If you inflict boundless cruelty and torment on Adlî, for God's sake do not give it up and treat him kindly; for now that way is a favour to his soul. (The line is obscure. Başpınar translates "for God's sake do not treat him kindly (keep doing this), for now that way/manner is a favour to his soul"; that understanding is followed here. The lover counts the beloved's cruelty as a kindness.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This is Adlî's second Persian ghazal. 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 suffix "-st", meaning "is"; the rhyme is the sound "-ehî": sehî, kûtehî, Rûhullahî, âgehî and rehî. The "serv-i sehî" (upright cypress) of the opening couplet is used again as the rhyme at the end of the fourth couplet. The ghazal is number 155 in Bayram's 2008 edition. According to the table in Bayram's 2018 edition, it is found in two of the five manuscripts, the T manuscript in the Egyptian National Library and the M2 manuscript copied by Ali Emîrî Efendi. In M2 Ali Emîrî gave a separate selection of Bayezid's Persian poems under the heading "Sultân Bâyezîd Hân-ı Velî Hazretlerinin Ba‘zı Fârisî Eş‘âr-ı Belâgat-Nisâr-ı Şâhâneleri"; this section contains three Persian ghazals, one kıt‘a and two matlas, and this ghazal is one of them. To whom and when it was written is not known.

When Fatih Başpınar points out the misreadings in Bayram's text of the Persian poems, he takes two examples from this ghazal. In the second line of the opening couplet the construction linking "şimşâd" and "kadd" had not been recognised, and the word "kûteh" (short) had been read separately. In the fourth couplet, because the three dots placed under the letter "sîn" in ta‘lik script had been taken for "pe", the word "ser" (head, top) was read as "per" (wing), and because a faded "sîn" was overlooked, "rû" (face) appeared in place of "serv". Başpınar corrects the line to "ber-ser-i serv-i sehîst" (is on the top of the upright cypress). Bayezid's interest in Persian is also seen in history writing. Şerafettin Turan notes that the sultan had İdrîs-i Bitlisî write an Ottoman history in Persian and İbn Kemal one in Turkish. Sehî Bey likewise records that İdrîs was brought eagerly from "the land of the Persians" (diyâr-ı Acem).

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The main subject of the ghazal is the beloved's stature. In the opening couplet the cheek is likened to a rose and the stature to a cypress; the second line magnifies this with hyperbole and counts even the Sidre tree at the boundary of heaven as short beside the beloved's stature. The congruence of images (tenasüp) between cypress, boxwood and Sidre turns the couplet into a comparison of heights made of trees. The fourth couplet returns to the same image: the beloved's stature is "the cypress of the garden of paradise", and the turtle-dove, longing for that stature, settles on the top of the earthly cypress. The familiar link between dove and cypress in divan poetry is here tied to the beloved; even the dove seeks the true cypress, the beloved's stature.

The second couplet is the densest of the poem. Khidr's water of immortality and Jesus's breath that raises the dead are two great allusions (telmih) to life-giving. The lover compares them with the beloved's sword and holds the sword superior. The way the word "water" evokes both the gleam of the sword and the water that quenches thirst creates, together with "teşnegân" (the thirsty), a congruence of images. Those who thirst for the lips are ready to drink death like water.

The third couplet uses language close to Sufism. There is a contrast (tezat) between "losing oneself" (gâ’ib zi-hod) and "awareness" (âgehî): the one who loses himself in love is, according to the people of truth, the most aware. The closing couplet is the voice of a lover who counts cruelty as a blessing; Adlî asks the beloved to continue the cruelty. A sultan presenting himself as one grateful for the beloved's torment is a Persian example of the exchange of servant and sultan often seen in Adlî's ghazals.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • 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; the Persian section in M2 p. 33). 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. 2 (text and translation p. 51; corrections in the first and fourth couplets pp. 41 and 45). Bayram 2008, p. 359, poem no. 155.
  • Şerafettin Turan, "Bayezid II", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 5, Istanbul 1992, https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/bayezid-ii.

Official sources

  • Sehî Beg, Heşt Bihişt, ed. Halûk İpekten, Günay Kut, Mustafa İsen, Hüseyin Ayan, Turgut Karabey, Ankara: Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yay., 2017 (e-book), entry on Sultan Bâyezîd, p. 17. ekitap.ktb.gov.tr

Online sources