Original Persian Text

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

Rūy-i yār-i men çu zīr-i zülf tābān mī şeved
Gūyiyā māhīst k’ū ez-ebr raḫşān mī şeved
Bulbulāsā mī konem ṣad nevḥa ez-sūz-i derūn
Çunki ān gul-berg-i men ez-nāz ḫandān mī şeved
Çun nedīdem rūy-i ḫūbet dāden-i cān pīş ez-īn
Gerçi muşkil būd ber-men īn dem āsān mī şeved
Sā‘atī ger dūr gerded çeşmem ez-dīdār-i tū
Ser-be-ser ‘ālem be-cism-i men çu zindān mī şeved
Nīst ‘Adlīrā be-gayr ez-nīm-cānī mā-ḥażar
Ān nigār-i lāle-ruḫ ger z’ānki mihmān mī şeved

In English

1. When my beloved's face shines beneath the curls, it becomes like a moon gleaming through the clouds.

2. When that rose petal of mine smiles with coquetry, I too, like the nightingale, cry out a hundred times from the fire within me. ("Handân" means in its dictionary sense both laughing and opened, a bud that has burst into bloom; the smile of the beloved, likened to a rose petal, is like a rose opening.)

3. Because I had not seen your lovely face, giving up my soul used to seem hard to me; hard as it was, now it becomes easy. (Having seen the face, the lover no longer shrinks from dying.)

4. If my eye is parted from your face for a single moment, the whole world from end to end becomes a prison to my body.

5. If that tulip-cheeked beauty should come as a guest, Adlî has nothing at hand to offer but half a soul. ("Mâ-hazar" means in its dictionary sense "what is at hand", the thing that can be set straight away before a guest who arrives at the house.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This is Adlî's third 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 "mî şeved" (becomes), and the rhyme is the sound "-ân": tâbân, rahşân, handân, âsân, zindân and mihmân. The ghazal is number 156 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.

The T manuscript is the most important source for Adlî's Persian poems. According to Bayram's description it contains 155 poems, 141 in Turkish and 14 in Persian, and Bayram, judging by its spelling features, says the manuscript may have been copied in the reign of Kanunî Sultan Süleyman. By Fatih Başpınar's count Bayezid's seventeen Persian poems make up roughly one tenth of all his poems. All fourteen Persian ghazals are found in T. The other manuscripts contain only a few of these poems, and the M1 manuscript in the Millet Library contains none. The text of this ghazal is the one Başpınar re-established by correcting the readings of Bayram 2008.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal opens with a simile describing the beloved's face. The face shining beneath the curls is likened to the moon seen through the clouds. The simile works in two directions: the face corresponds to the moon, and the dark, scattered curls to the cloud. The placing of "tâbân" (bright) and "rahşân" (gleaming) facing each other at the ends of the two lines gives the impression that the light runs through the whole couplet.

The second couplet uses the motif of the rose and the nightingale. The beloved is a rose petal, and the lover is the nightingale crying out before it. The beloved's coquettish smile is expressed with the word "handân". Because the word carries the senses both of laughing and of a flower opening, it ties the smiling beloved to the opening rose. This double meaning creates the effect of a tevriye (double entendre) in the couplet. The nightingale's cry also comes from "sûz-ı derûn", the fire within; there is a congruence of images (tenasüp) between rose, nightingale and cry.

The third and fourth couplets set union and separation side by side. The lover, who feared death before seeing the beloved's face, finds giving up his soul easy after seeing it. The contrast (tezat) between "müşkil" (hard) and "âsân" (easy) carries this change. In the fourth couplet even a short separation turns the world into a prison. The whole world becoming a prison for one body conveys through hyperbole the weight of a moment spent away from the beloved.

The closing couplet builds a scene from the custom of hospitality. If the tulip-cheeked beloved came as a guest to the lover's house, all Adlî could offer would be half a soul. The word "mâ-hazar" recalls the custom of offering a guest whatever is at hand. That even the soul is only "half" suggests the lover is already close to exhaustion because of love. The simile of tulip and cheek also carries into the closing couplet the flower imagery that runs through the ghazal from the start. A sultan saying he has nothing to offer the beloved is an irony actually present in the couplet: the poet who owns treasuries is a poor host before the beloved.

Bibliography

  • Fatih Başpınar, "Sultan II. Bayezid'in Farsça Şiirleri Üzerine", Divan Edebiyatı Araştırmaları Dergisi 8 (2012), pp. 37-66, poem no. 3 (text and translation p. 52). Bayram 2008, p. 361, poem no. 156.
  • 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; T manuscript p. 32). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr

Online sources