Original Persian Text

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

Ey be-tīr-i ġamze ḫaste cān-i men
Raḥm kon ber-dīde-i giryān-i men
‘Omr-i men żāyi‘ şod u hergiz neşod
Ān perī-ruḫ yek şebī mihmān-i men
Ey ki dermān mī konī derd-i merā
Hem be-derd-i dōst kon dermān-i men
Kāfireş ḫvānend merdum tā ki sāḫt
Zulfrā ġāretger-i īmān-i men
Ez-tu ‘Adlī dāşt çeşm-i merḥamet
Raḥmetī ber-hāleş ey sulṭān-i men

In English

1. O beloved who has wounded my soul with the arrow of your glance, have pity on my weeping eye. ("Gamze" is the beloved's languid, sidelong glance and is likened in divan poetry to an arrow. "Haste" means in its dictionary sense both wounded and sick.)

2. My life has gone to waste, and that fairy-faced one has not once been my guest for a single night.

3. O you who are the cure of my pain, make my cure too out of the pain of the friend. (For the lover the true remedy is nothing other than the pain the beloved gives.)

4. People call it an infidel, because it made the curl the plunderer of my faith. (Başpınar understands the couplet as "people call the curl an infidel because it is the plunderer of my faith". The root of the word "kâfir" means in its dictionary sense "to cover"; calling the dark curl that covers the face an infidel also rests on this sense.)

5. Adlî was hoping for a glance of mercy from you; O my sultan, have some pity on his state.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This is Adlî's eighth Persian ghazal. It has five couplets and is written in the remel metre "fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilün". The redif (refrain word) is "-i men" (of mine); the rhyme is the sound "-ân": cân, giryân, mihmân, dermân, îmân and sultân. Every couplet ends with something belonging to the lover, such as "my soul", "my weeping eye", "my guest". The ghazal is number 161 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 text is the one Fatih Başpınar established by correcting the readings of Bayram 2008.

Poetry and poets held an important place at Bayezid's court. Sehî Bey describes him as a sultan inclined to poetry, to the art of prose composition and to men of learning. Şerafettin Turan likewise notes that the names of many poets, artists, scholars and sheikhs appear in an İn‘âmât Defteri recording the gifts and grants made to various people between 1503 and 1511. Poets such as Necâtî, Zâtî and Tâcîzâde Câfer Çelebi are among those who enjoyed his support.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal opens with the familiar instruments of the pain of love. The beloved's glance is an arrow and has wounded the lover's soul. The eye is weeping. There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) between arrow, wound and tears. The second couplet is a complaint that life has passed in vain; the fairy-faced beloved has not once been the lover's guest for a night. The "fairy" image conveys both the beloved's beauty and the beloved's elusiveness.

The third couplet is built on a paradox. The words "derd" (pain) and "dermân" (cure) come side by side in both lines. The lover asks the beloved, who is the cure of his pain, to make the cure too out of the pain of the friend. That the pain of love is at the same time the lover's only remedy is one of the cherished ideas of divan poetry. In this couplet the contrast (tezat) between pain and cure is reinforced by repetition and by the likeness of sound.

The fourth couplet sets up a contrast between the words "kâfir" (infidel) and "îmân" (faith). The beloved's curl has plundered the lover's faith; for this reason people call it an infidel. The blackness of the curl, its covering of the face and its stealing of the lover's heart bring together several associations of the word "kâfir". Başpınar ties the couplet to the curl being called an infidel. Since the pronoun in the line can refer either to the beloved or to the curl, the couplet is somewhat obscure as to who is counted the infidel.

The ghazal ends with Adlî addressing the beloved as "O my sultan". Here the redif "-i men" produces the phrase "sultân-i men". A sultan who writes the poem calling the beloved his sultan, as a lover waiting for a glance of mercy, is a clear example of the exchange of servant and sultan often seen in Adlî's poems.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • 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

Academic studies

  • Fatih Başpınar, "Sultan II. Bayezid'in Farsça Şiirleri Üzerine", Divan Edebiyatı Araştırmaları Dergisi 8 (2012), pp. 37-66, poem no. 8 (text and translation p. 57). Bayram 2008, p. 365, poem no. 161.
  • 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