Original Persian Text

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

Eger gerdīm ḫāk-i reh der-ān kū
Neyefşānīm dāmen ez-reh-i ū
Be-nāz u şīve dāred bā-men ān şūḫ
İşāret geh be-çeşm u geh be-ebrū
‘Aceb çeşmīst çeşmet ey perī-zād
Çunān çeşmī nedāred hīç āhū
Çu dīdem zulf çun s̱u‘bānet ey dōst
Nemī tersem diger z’ān çeşm-i cādū
Nedāred bāk ‘Adlī ez-raḳībān
Çu dād ūrā seg-i tū cā be-pehlū

In English

1. If we have become the dust on the road of that quarter, we will no longer shake our skirts and leave that road. ("Dâmen efşândan", to shake one's skirt, means in its dictionary sense to withdraw from something, to cut off one's interest.)

2. That playful beauty signals to me with coquetry and charm, now with the eye, now with the eyebrow.

3. O fairy-born beloved, what a wondrous eye your eye is; no gazelle has such an eye.

4. O friend, since I have seen your dragon-like curl, I no longer fear that sorcerer eye. ("Su‘bân" means in its dictionary sense a great serpent, a dragon. The curl's coils and blackness liken it to a serpent. Having seen what is more fearsome, the lover no longer shrinks from the beloved's bewitching eye.)

5. Adlî no longer fears the rivals, for your dog has given him a place at its side. (The dog at the beloved's door is, in divan poetry, the measure of the lover's nearness to that door.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This is Adlî's ninth 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 "-û": kû, û, ebrû, âhû, câdû and pehlû. The ghazal is number 162 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. Bayram notes that this manuscript is written in ta‘lik script. To whom and when it was written is not known.

This ghazal is one of the poems where Fatih Başpınar's corrections are most concentrated, and some of them have directly to do with the features of ta‘lik script. In the second couplet Bayram had read "şîve-dâr u" and, taking the "geh" in the second line as a suffix of place, had written "işâret-geh" (place of signal). Başpınar recognises the verb "dâred" (has, does) in the first line and the construction "geh... geh..." (now... now...) in the second. In the closing couplet there was an incomprehensible expression "be-yektû". Başpınar shows that in ta‘lik script three dots can be placed under the letter "sîn" and that these dots had been taken for the dots of two separate letters; the same letters must be read "seg-i tû" (your dog). The run-together "dâdûrâ" must likewise be "dâd ûrâ" (gave him). The text given here includes these corrections.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet speaks of devotion to the beloved's quarter. The lover has become the dust on the road of that quarter and will no longer shake his skirts and leave that road. There is a link between "hâk" (dust) and "dâmen efşândan" (shaking the skirt): dust clinging to a skirt is shaken off, but one who has become the dust of the road cannot part from that road. The idea expresses the lover's complete self-effacement on the beloved's path.

The second and third couplets dwell on the beloved's eye and eyebrow. The playful beloved signals with coquetry and charm, now with the eye, now with the eyebrow. There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) between eye, eyebrow and signal. In the third couplet the beloved's eye is compared with the gazelle's eye and held superior to it. The gazelle's eye is the familiar standard of beauty; the beloved's eye exceeds that standard. The address "perî-zâd" (fairy-born) also lends the eye something extraordinary.

The fourth couplet is the most thought-provoking of the ghazal. The beloved's curl is likened to a dragon and the eye to a sorcerer. Having seen the dragon, the lover does not fear the sorcerer. According to lexical knowledge, the word "su‘bân" is also used for the serpent into which the staff of Moses was turned. The couplet can therefore also be read as an allusion (telmih) to Moses' staff defeating the sorcerers; this link, however, is not made explicitly in the line. Curl and serpent, eye and sorcery are established similes of divan poetry, and the couplet turns the two into a ranking of fears.

The closing couplet uses the image of the beloved's dog. The dog at the beloved's door has given the lover a place at its side; this is a sign that the lover has been admitted to that door. His no longer fearing the rivals comes from this. A sultan describing himself as one who takes pride in finding a place beside the beloved's dog carries the lover's humility to an extreme point.

Bibliography

  • Fatih Başpınar, "Sultan II. Bayezid'in Farsça Şiirleri Üzerine", Divan Edebiyatı Araştırmaları Dergisi 8 (2012), pp. 37-66, poem no. 9 (text and translation p. 58; correction in the second couplet p. 43, correction in the closing couplet pp. 46-47). Bayram 2008, p. 365, poem no. 162.
  • 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; T manuscript p. 32). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr

Online sources