Original Ottoman Turkish Text

İki cihânda iki Bâyezîd’e itdi ṭufeyl
Ḫudâ ḳılup naẓar-ı luṭfa her birin manẓûr
Birisi ‘âlem-i mâ‘nide şöhre-i âfâḳ
Birisi ṣûret u ma‘nide gün gibi meşhûr
Birisi mehbit-i envâr-ı feyż-i Rabbânî
Birisi reh-ber-i cumhûr-ı ġâziyân-ı ġayûr
Anuñ feżâyili Ḥaḳ fażlı gibi nâ-maḥdûd
Bunuñ ḫaṣâyili Ḥaḳ luṭfı gibi nâ-maḥṣûr
Bu virdi şer‘ esâsına ṣıdḳ ile aḥkâm
O ḳıldı zühd diyârını ‘ışḳ ile ma‘mûr
Şemâyili mütenâhî degül çü her birinüñ
Gerek birisine ṣarf ola mâ-hüve’l-maḳdûr
Zihî merâsim-i cûduñ mürebbiyü’l-fużalâ
Levâyıḥ-ı himemüñ feyż-baḫş-ı ehl-i ḥużûr
Beyâż-ı ġurre-i esbüñ sevâd-ı dergâhuñ
Ḥaḳ itdi reşk-i beyâż u sevâd-ı dîde-i ḥûr
Olur yoluñda iki dillü tîre-ḫâṭır olan
Midâd gibi siyah-rû ḳalem gibi meksûr

In English

1. God made the two worlds a gift bestowed on two Bayezids and deemed each of them worthy of the gaze of His grace. ("Tufeyl" is something granted to one person for the sake of another.)

2. One is a fame spread across the horizons in the world of meaning; the other is renowned like the sun both in outward form and in meaning.

3. One is the place where the lights of the Lord's grace descend; the other is the guide of the host of zealous warriors for the faith.

4. The virtues of the one are boundless like God's bounty, the qualities of the other countless like God's grace.

5. This one gave judgements on the foundation of the sharia with truthfulness; that one built up the land of asceticism with love.

6. Since the fine qualities of each are endless, a man must spend all he is capable of on one of them. (The couplet can be read in two ways: that praise can suffice for only one of them, or that each deserves the whole of one's power.)

7. How fine: the customs of your generosity nurture men of merit; the gleams of your high resolve bestow grace on those in God's presence.

8. God made the white blaze on your horse's forehead and the black of your court a cause of envy to the white and black of the houris' eyes.

9. Whoever is double-tongued and dark-hearted on your path ends with a face black as ink and broken like a pen.

Literary and Historical Commentary

The whole weight of the kaside rests on a likeness of names. There are two men called Bayezid: Bayezid II on the throne and Bâyezîd-i Bistâmî, the great Sufi of the ninth century. The poet sets them in the two pans of a scale and weaves the couplets with a series of correspondences built on "one … the other", "his … this one's", "this … that". Bistâmî is the fame of the world of meaning, the sultan famous in form and meaning alike; Bistâmî is the place where the lights of grace descend, the sultan the guide of the warriors; one has enlivened the land of asceticism with love, the other has judged on the foundation of the sharia. Latîfî sums up this pairing in his entry with a pun, writing that the kaside was spoken about the sultan who is "Bâyezîd-hilkat ve Bestâmî-fıtnat", Bayezid in his creation and Bistâmî in his intelligence. Sehî notes that the poem is in the style of "mev'iza", admonition; praise and the urging of piety walk side by side here.

The couplets the sources chose are not the beginning of the kaside. Since the lines of the first couplet do not rhyme, it cannot be the opening couplet (matla); the anthologists took from the middle of a long kaside the section that turns on the sultan's name. The rhyme is the sound -ûr: manzûr, meşhûr, gayûr, mahsûr, ma'mûr, makdûr, huzûr, hûr, meksûr. In the last two couplets the address changes and the poet speaks directly to the sultan. In the eighth couplet the white blaze on the forehead of the sultan's horse and the black of his court make the white and black of the houris' eyes envious; the ninth draws a comparison between the split nib of a pen and the two-faced man. A reed pen whose tip is split is called "two-tongued", and ink blackens the pen; whoever is two-tongued on the sultan's path will likewise remain black-faced like ink and broken like a pen.

The Text in the Sources

The number of couplets changes from anthology to anthology. Sehî, followed here, gives nine. Latîfî gives the first seven, and Hüsameddin too quotes these seven from Latîfî in his Amasya Tarihi. Kınalızâde adds the eighth but not the ninth; Âşık Çelebi skips the eighth and gives the ninth in the form "Ölür yoluñda iki dilli tîre-ḫâṭır olup". Gelibolulu Âlî contents himself with the first six. There is also a difference of reading in the first couplet: Sehî has "İki cihânda … itdi", Latîfî "İki cihânı … ḳıldı".

According to Âşık Çelebi, Emîrî's stipend as naqib al-ashraf rose each time he presented a kaside or a kıta to the sultan; he says that this kaside too was presented to Bayezid. The poem was evidently written during the reign of Bayezid II, between 1481 and 1512; no more precise date is known. His life and his years as naqib al-ashraf are told in the article Emîrî (Seyyid Mahmûd).

Bibliography

Primary sources

Official sources

Online sources