Original Persian Text

Metre: Mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün fe‘ūlün (hezec)

Çu men dürdī-i derdetrā çeşīdem
Zi-ḳayd-i hestī-i hodrā remīdem
Şebī ez-‘işḳ-i Leylā der-beyābān
Çu Mecnūn cāme-i cānrā derīdem
Men ez-rūz-i elest ey cān-i cānān
Bidādem cān u ‘işḳetrā ḫarīdem
Be-çevgān-i se‘ādet bordeem gūy
Ki der-meydān-i ‘işḳ-i tū ferīdem
Ez-ān laḥẓa ki dīdem sükkeretrā
Çu ṭūṭī z’āşiyān-i ḫod perīdem
Zi-hicrān-i tu būdem zār u ḫaste
Bi-ḥamdillāh der-i vuṣlat resīdem
Eger ḫūbī çu tū bāşed be-ḫūbī
Çu ‘Adlī īn nihān men hem murīdem

In English

1. When I tasted the dregs of your pain, I shied away and fled from the bond of my own existence. ("Dürdî" is in its dictionary sense the sediment left at the bottom of a wine jar. The lover has drunk the beloved's pain like wine to the bottom and freed himself from the bond of his own being. Başpınar translates "I shuddered with regard to the bond of my own existence".)

2. One night in the desert, out of love for Leylâ, I tore the shirt of my soul like Majnun.

3. O soul of souls, since the Day of Alast I have given my soul and bought your love. (The "Day of Alast" is in its dictionary sense the day of pre-eternity when the souls were created and God asked them "Am I not your Lord?")

4. With the polo stick of good fortune I have carried off the ball, for in the field of your love I am the one without equal. (Çevgân is in its dictionary sense the game in which mounted players strike a ball with crooked-ended sticks. "Gûy bordan", to carry off the ball, is used in Persian in the sense of winning the contest.)

5. From the moment I saw your sugar lips, I flew from my own nest like a parrot.

6. I was a sick man moaning from separation from you; thanks be to God, I have reached the door of union.

7. If beauty is found in a beauty like you, then like Adlî I too am a disciple of this hidden secret. (Başpınar translates "if beauty comes with beauty like yours, I too, like Adlî, become a disciple of this secret".)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This is Adlî's fourth Persian ghazal. It has seven couplets and is the longest of the Persian ghazals. It is written in the hezec metre "mefâ‘îlün mefâ‘îlün fe‘ûlün". The redif (refrain word) is the first-person ending "-em", and the rhyme is the sound "-îd": çeşîdem, remîdem, derîdem, harîdem, ferîdem, perîdem, resîdem and murîdem. The ghazal is number 157 in Bayram's 2008 edition. According to the table in Bayram's 2018 edition it is found in three manuscripts: OR in the British Library, İBB in the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Atatürk Library and T in the Egyptian National Library. Among the Persian poems only two ghazals appear in as many as three manuscripts; the other is ghazal 165. To whom and when it was written is not known.

This wider circulation has to do with the place the manuscripts give to the Persian poems. According to Bayram the OR manuscript contains 134 Turkish and 3 Persian ghazals and must have been written in the early 1500s; in İBB two of the 106 ghazals are in Persian. T, on the other hand, contains all fourteen Persian ghazals. According to Fatih Başpınar, Bayezid's Persian poems make up roughly one tenth of all his poems; the text is the one he established by correcting the readings of Bayram 2008.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal presents love as a release from the self. In the opening couplet the lover drinks the beloved's pain to the bottom like the dregs of wine and flees from the bond of his own being. There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) drawn from the wine gathering between "dürd" (dregs) and "çeşîden" (to taste). This language recalls the Sufi idea of transcending the self; yet the rest of the ghazal goes on describing the beloved as a human beauty.

The second and third couplets name two great examples of love. Majnun tearing his shirt in the desert for Leylâ becomes the lover tearing the "shirt of his soul"; here the shirt is the body, and its tearing evokes death. The third couplet carries the beginning of love back to the Day of Alast, that is, to pre-eternity. The lover has given his soul and "bought" the beloved's love in return; this metaphor (istiare) taken from trade presents soul and love as the two sides of an exchange.

The fourth couplet builds a scene from the game of polo. Field, ball and stick describe the contest of love; the lover has carried off the ball and won the contest. The fifth couplet uses the familiar link between the parrot and sugar. The parrot is fond of sugar; the lover, seeing the beloved's sugar lips, has flown from his nest like a parrot.

The sixth couplet announces the passage from separation to union with the thanksgiving "bi-hamdillâh". The closing couplet is notable: the poet speaks of himself in the third person and says "like Adlî, I too". The pen name (mahlas) thus appears as an example outside the voice speaking the poem, like a known disciple on the path of love. The word "mürîd" is a Sufi term; calling beauty "nihân", a hidden secret, also ties the ghazal back to the idea of passing beyond the self in the opening couplet.

Bibliography

  • Fatih Başpınar, "Sultan II. Bayezid'in Farsça Şiirleri Üzerine", Divan Edebiyatı Araştırmaları Dergisi 8 (2012), pp. 37-66, poem no. 4 (text and translation p. 53). Bayram 2008, p. 361, poem no. 157.
  • 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