Original Persian Text

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

Çu āmed pīş-i men ān serv-i çālāk
Nihādem pīş-i pāyeş rūy ber-ḫāk
Bedū goftem tuyī rūḥ-i muṣavver
Ez-īn sān key şeved mis̱l-i tu ḫāşāk
Eger meylī numāyed sūy-i mā yār
Neyāyed ez-raḳībān der-dilem bāk
Eger hicrān çunīn sūzed derūnem
Biḫvāhed sūḫten ez-āhem eflāk
Be-‘Adlī ger resed ẓulmī zi-hecret
Koned hem ez-tu pīşet cāmerā çāk

In English

1. When that swaying cypress came to my side, I laid my face on the earth before its feet. ("Çâlâk" means in its dictionary sense nimble, supple, ever in motion; the cypress-statured beloved walks with a sway.)

2. I said to it: "You are a soul that has taken on form; how could a piece of chaff ever be like you?" ("Rûh-ı musavver" means a soul clothed in form, made visible to the eye. "Hâşâk" means in its dictionary sense chaff, bits of straw.)

3. If the beloved shows some inclination towards us, no fear of the rivals will come into my heart.

4. If separation goes on burning my insides like this, the heavens will catch fire and burn from my sighs.

5. If some cruelty reaches Adlî through separation from you, he will tear his shirt to pieces before you, because of you.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This is Adlî's fifth Persian ghazal. It has five couplets and is written in the hezec metre "mefâ‘îlün mefâ‘îlün fe‘ûlün". The ghazal has no redif (refrain word); the rhyme is the sound "-âk": çâlâk, hâk, hâşâk, bâk, eflâk and çâk. The ghazal is number 158 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 groups the misreadings in Bayezid's Persian poems under five headings: overlooking the metre, errors in noun constructions, misread words, overlooking features of the manuscript's script, and places that should have been emended but were not. For each heading he gives at least three examples. The opening couplet of this ghazal is one of the examples of construction errors. Where Bayram's text reads two words, "ser ü çâlâk" (head and nimble), Başpınar sees the single word "serv", and the line should be read "ân serv-i çâlâk" (that supple cypress). With this correction the meaning also falls into place: the one who comes to the lover's side is a swaying, cypress-statured beloved. Başpınar's aim is to bring the poems, by the standards of textual criticism, as close as possible to the form in which they "came from the poet's pen".

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal opens with a scene of meeting. The cypress-statured beloved comes to the lover's side, and the lover lays his face on the earth before its feet. There is a contrast of height and lowness between the upright cypress and the lover prostrating himself. The second couplet puts this contrast into words: the lover tells the beloved that it is a soul that has taken on form and adds that no piece of chaff could resemble it. The contrast (tezat) between "soul" and "chaff" presents the beloved as a being freed from matter. The "hâk" (earth) of the opening couplet and the "hâşâk" (chaff) of this couplet stand side by side in the rhyme and place the earth on which the lover lays himself and everything that is worthless before the beloved on the same low plane.

The third couplet mentions the rival, a stock figure of divan poetry. If the beloved shows the lover favour, the lover does not fear the rivals. The fourth couplet carries the fire of separation up to the heavens. The separation burning the lover's insides is so great that the sigh he heaves sets the heavens on fire. The sigh is often imagined in divan poetry as something fiery that rises to the sky; here the hyperbole (mübalağa) goes as far as burning the heavens.

The closing couplet names the lover's gesture of tearing his garment. Adlî, suffering the cruelty of separation, tears his shirt to pieces before the beloved. This gesture is spoken with the final rhyme word "çâk" (torn), which carries the sound of the word "çâlâk" in the opening couplet. The beloved who came swaying at the beginning of the ghazal ends facing a lover who tears his shirt. A sultan describing himself as one who prostrates himself and tears his collar before the beloved shows how the roles of lover and sultan change places within the poem.

Bibliography

  • Fatih Başpınar, "Sultan II. Bayezid'in Farsça Şiirleri Üzerine", Divan Edebiyatı Araştırmaları Dergisi 8 (2012), pp. 37-66, poem no. 5 (text and translation p. 54; correction in the opening couplet pp. 41-42; classification of the errors pp. 39-49). Bayram 2008, p. 363, poem no. 158.
  • 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