Original Persian Text

Metre: Mef‘ūlü mefā‘īlü mefā‘īlü fe‘ūlün (hezec)

Her dūd ki peydā şeved ez-sīne-i çākem
Ebrī şeved u girye koned ber-ser-i ḫākem

In English

1. Every wisp of smoke that rises from my torn breast becomes a cloud and weeps over my grave. ("Sîne-i çâk" means in its dictionary sense a torn, rent breast; smoke rises from the breast of the lover burning in the fire of love. "Hâk" means earth and here stands for the grave.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This is a single-couplet Persian matla (opening couplet) written in the hezec metre "mef‘ûlü mefâ‘îlü mefâ‘îlü fe‘ûlün". The rhyme is the "-âk" sound in the words "çâkem" and "hâkem", and the "-em" that follows is the first-person possessive ending. The couplet is number 170 in Bayram's 2008 edition. According to the table in Bayram's 2018 edition it is found, of the manuscripts, only in M2, copied by Ali Emîrî Efendi, in the section where Bayezid's Persian poems are collected. On the other hand, the couplet is among the most frequently cited of Adlî's poems in the biographical anthologies of poets (tezkire). Âşık Çelebi, Beyânî and Kınalızâde Hasan Çelebi give this Persian matla as an example in their entries on Sultan Bâyezîd, together with the Turkish matla "İy süvâr-ı esb-i nâz".

The first word of the couplet varies according to the source. Âşık Çelebi writes "Her nâle" (every moan), Kınalızâde "Her derd" (every pain), and Beyânî "Her dûd" (every wisp of smoke). Bayram's 2008 edition followed the reading "derd" found in Kınalızâde. Fatih Başpınar ascribes this reading to the possible confusion of the letters "dâl" and "vâv" in Arabic script and says that the sense "every pain that appears from my torn breast" does not fit the couplet. In his view the couplet rests on the idea of smoke from a fire burning in the breast turning into a cloud and, becoming rain, weeping over the grave of the lover who has died in the fire of love; the likeness between smoke and cloud is also plain. For this reason Başpınar adopts the reading "dûd" found in Beyânî. The text given here is Başpınar's text.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The couplet ties a familiar idea of divan poetry to a natural phenomenon. The lover's breast is burning in the fire of love, and smoke rises from the torn breast. This smoke rises to the sky and becomes a cloud, and the cloud weeps as rain over the lover's grave. The lover has died, but the smoke of the fire he burned in goes on mourning after him. The smoke turning into cloud and the rain into tears is a chain of successive transformations. Presenting rain as the weeping of the cloud is a manner of speech close to personification (teşhis) and hüsn-i talil (fanciful aetiology). There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) between smoke, cloud, weeping and earth. "Sîne" (breast) and "ser" (head) also bring images of the body into the couplet: what rises from the breast ends by standing at the head of the grave.

The strength of the couplet lies in its simplicity. With few words a beginning, a transformation and an end are built. This pattern lends itself to poets keeping the structure "Her X ki..." of the first line and "...şeved u ... koned ber-ser-i hâkem" of the second and placing new images within it.

Historical Context

Âşık Çelebi says that "ekâbir-i asr", the great men of the age, wrote nazires (response poems) to this Persian matla, and he gives six of them. Kınalızâde likewise writes that "şu‘arâ-yı vakt", the poets of the time, took this couplet as a model and composed on it, and he lists the same six names: Necâtî, Câfer Çelebi, Vasfî, Müeyyedzâde, Hâcı Hasanzâde and Kemâl Paşazâde. Beyânî gives the couplets of Necâtî, Müeyyedzâde and Kemâl Paşazâde. All the nazires keep Adlî's pattern but turn the first line into the form "Her ... kez tu resed ber-dil-i çâkem" (every ... that reaches my wounded heart from you). In the forms Kınalızâde transmits, in Necâtî every reed arrow that reaches the wounded heart becomes a reed flute and wails at the head of the grave: Her nâvek-i ney kez tu resed ber-dil-i çâkem / Nâyî şeved ü nâle koned ber-ser-i hâkem. In Câfer Çelebi every arrow of cruelty becomes a cypress and casts shade over the grave; in Vasfî every stone of cruelty becomes a tablet and likewise casts shade. In Müeyyedzâde every three-feathered arrow becomes a bird and dances at the head of the grave; in Hâcı Hasanzâde every playful glance becomes, according to Kınalızâde, an iris, according to Âşık Çelebi, a cypress, and casts shade over the grave; and in Kemâl Paşazâde the longing for the beloved's down becomes a hyacinth and gives its scent to the grave. The couplets are transmitted with small differences between the tezkires.

Those who wrote nazires are leading poets and statesmen of the period. Müeyyedzâde Abdurrahman and Tâcîzâde Câfer Çelebi appear in TEİS among the names mentioned in Bayezid's Amasya circle. Şerafettin Turan counts Necâtî, Kemâl Paşazâde, also known as İbn Kemal, and Tâcîzâde Câfer among the scholars and poets who enjoyed Bayezid's support; Kınalızâde too refers to Hâcı Hasanzâde as a kazasker (chief military judge). Bayram, for his part, notes that on folios 38b-39a of the M2 manuscript there are nazires "to a matla of Adlî's" written by poets and statesmen of the period such as Necâtî Bey, Müeyyedzâde Abdurrahman Çelebi and Tâcîzâde Câfer Çelebi. In which years and at which gathering these nazires were written is not stated in the sources. Even so, these records show that a Persian couplet by the sultan was taken as a model and answered by the poets and statesmen of the period.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Yavuz Bayram (ed.), Adlî Dîvânı (Dîvân-ı Sultân Bâyezîd-i Sânî), Ankara: Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yay., 2018, pp. 30 and 33 (Table 4; the Persian section and the nazires in M2 p. 33). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr
  • Âşık Çelebi, Meşâirü'ş-şuarâ, ed. Filiz Kılıç, Ankara: Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yay., 2018 (e-book), p. 72 (entry on Sultan Bâyezîd). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr
  • Beyânî, Tezkiretü'ş-Şu'arâ, ed. Aysun Sungurhan, Ankara: Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yay., 2017 (e-book), p. 14, entry on Sultan Bâyezîd. ekitap.ktb.gov.tr
  • Kınalızâde Hasan Çelebi, Tezkiretü'ş-Şu'arâ, ed. Aysun Sungurhan, Ankara: Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yay., 2017 (e-book), pp. 132-133, entry on Sultan Bâyezîd. ekitap.ktb.gov.tr

Academic studies

  • Fatih Başpınar, "Sultan II. Bayezid'in Farsça Şiirleri Üzerine", Divan Edebiyatı Araştırmaları Dergisi 8 (2012), pp. 37-66, matla no. 2 (text and translation p. 65; the "derd"/"dûd" discussion pp. 44-45). Bayram 2008, p. 373, poem no. 170.
  • Şerafettin Turan, "Bayezid II", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 5, Istanbul 1992, https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/bayezid-ii.

Books

Online sources