Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mefâilün feilâtün mefâilün feilün (müctes). The edition does not show the müctes pattern; we are the ones who identified it.

Behişt gibi oldı harâbât sahnı vesî‘
Ki anda muğ-beçeler var ki hûr-şekl ü bedî‘
Nesîm-i rûh-fezâsıyla şeş cihet memlû
Ya çâr fasl hevâsı misâl-i fasl-ı rebî‘
Sâfâ-y-ile ire mi anda tîre-dil sûfî
Meger mübeddel ide eylüge hısâl-i şenî‘
Çü dürd-keş ki ola anda cür‘a nûş eyler
Biñ olsa cürm vera‘ bir latîfe-y-ile şefî‘
O mülke vü anuñ ehline iriş ey ‘Avnî
Bu devr ehline bakma eger şerîf ü vazî‘

In English

1. The courtyard of the tavern has grown wide as Paradise; for there are tavern boys (muğbeçe) there, houri-faced and matchless.

2. The six directions are full of its life-giving breeze; and the air of the four sections (the four seasons) is like the season of spring.

3. Can the murky-hearted Sufi reach that place in delight? Only if he turns his ugly habits to good.

4. There, whoever drinks the dregs at the bottom of the cup, though he have a thousand sins, becomes an intercessor through one small kindness (or a nicety of piety).

5. O Avnî, reach that realm and its people; do not look at the people of this age, whether noble or base.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The ghazal rhymes on the "-î'" sound of the Arabic words "vesî', bedî', rebî', şenî', şefî', vazî'" and carries no redif. It has five couplets in the müctes metre. Doğan reads the whole ghazal as an allegory: the tavern is the dervish lodge (tekke), wine is divine love, the smell of wine in the tavern is the spiritual air spreading from the lodge, the tavern-keeper is the sheikh, the tavern boy is the disciple, and the tavern's regulars are the dervishes of the Sufi path.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet likens the tavern to Paradise. The word "harâbât" literally means ruins; taverns were so called because they stood in the ruined quarters at the edge of town. The courtyard of this ruined place is as wide as Paradise, for there the tavern boys, the apprentices of the Magian tavern-keeper, beautiful as houris, move about.

In the second couplet "şeş cihet", the six directions (above, below, front, back, right, left), means everywhere. The life-giving breeze has filled every side. Doğan reads the second line carefully: "çâr fasl" at first sight means the four seasons, but "fasl" can mean a section divided off by a curtain or half-wall, and "hevâ" the inner part; the line then says that the four sections inside the tavern or the lodge are like spring. In both readings the tavern lies outside the seasons, in a lasting spring.

The third couplet keeps the Sufi outside this Paradise. Just as people cannot enter Paradise until they give up their bad habits, the "tîre-dil", murky-hearted Sufi who is not cleansed of faults such as gossip and mischief cannot enter the tavern with an easy heart. The fourth couplet makes an unexpected reversal: the "dürd-keş" who drinks the dregs at the bottom of the cup, even the most debased drinker, though he have a thousand sins, rises to the station of intercessor through one kindness. Doğan notes that the word "vera'" means piety, devoutness, but here sets up a double meaning with the sense "small, trifling".

The final couplet divides people into two groups: those inside the realm of the tavern and those outside. Avnî advises himself not to look at those outside, whether or not they have rank and wealth, but to reach the realm of the tavern and its people. That a sultan should count as unimportant the distinction of "şerîf ü vazî'", noble and base, gives the ghazal's allegory an unexpected turn.

Bibliography

  • Fâtih Sultan Mehmed (Avnî), Fâtih Dîvânı ve Şerhi / Dīwān of Sultan Mehmed II with Commentary, ed. Muhammet Nur Doğan, English trans. Michael D. Sheridan, 3rd ed., Istanbul: Türkiye Yazma Eserler Kurumu Başkanlığı, 2023, poem 34, pp. 283-285 (manuscript: Millet, Ali Emîrî Manzum 305, fol. 11a). https://ekitap.yek.gov.tr/urun/fatih-divani-ve-serhi--ucuncu-baski-_794.aspx

Online sources