Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mefâilün feilâtün mefâilün feilün (müctes; the edition leaves the metre unnamed, so the scansion is ours)

Çü oldı la‘lüñe teşbîh cân-fezâ-yı şerâb
Dile ziyâde olur dem-be-dem hevâ-yı şerâb
Behâr oldı vü güller açıldı ey sâkî
Kadeh getür ki bu fasl eyler iktizâ-yı şerâb
Yeter çerâğ baña şem‘a ihtiyâcum yok
Fürûğ-ı mâh-ı ruh-ı sâkî vü safâ-yı şerâb
Başumda gerd-i mezellet elümde köhne sifâl
Kanı benüm gibi devr içre bir gedâ-yı şerâb
Gice yol üzre yatup mest nakdi aldurduñ
Ne kaldı ‘Avnî elinde k’ola behâ-yı şerâb

In English

1. Since life-giving wine has been likened to your ruby lip, the desire for wine grows in my heart at every moment.

2. Spring has come and the roses have opened, O cupbearer; bring the cup, for this season calls for wine.

3. The radiance of the cupbearer's moon face and the delight of wine are lamp enough for me; I have no need of a candle.

4. On my head the dust of abasement, in my hand an old earthen cup: where in this age is a beggar for wine like me?

5. Lying drunk on the road at night you had your cash stolen; what is left in Avnî's hand to pay the price of wine?

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The word chosen as redif, "şerâb" (wine), binds each of the five couplets to the same word; the rhyme falls on "-â", as in "cân-fezâ, hevâ, iktizâ, safâ, gedâ, behâ". The "mefâilün feilâtün mefâilün feilün" pattern of the müctes metre is a light and flowing metre often used in divan poetry for ghazals of wine and spring.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

Throughout the ghazal wine is a two-sided word. The desire to drink is born, in the opening couplet, of a likeness: wine, as a giver of life, has been likened to the beloved's lip; the lover who cannot reach the lip turns to the wine that resembles it. In Doğan's reading wine carries figurative and true love together through the whole ghazal. The second couplet gives the season as its reason: spring has come, the roses have opened, and "this fasıl" calls for wine. "Fasıl" means both season and a section of a musical gathering; spring and the gathering thus meet in a single word.

In the third couplet the light of the gathering comes from the cupbearer's face and the gleam of the wine. The moon-faced cupbearer and the wine in the cup become a "çerâğ", a lamp, that leaves no need for a candle; a congruence of images (tenasüp) of light is set up between candle, moon and lamp. The fourth couplet draws the lover as a beggar: on his head is "gerd-i mezellet", the dust of abasement, in his hand a "köhne sifâl", a battered earthen cup. The ruler of the world showing himself as a beggar at the door of wine is a reversal repeated in many couplets of the divan.

The final couplet tells a scene. The lover got drunk at night, fell asleep on the road and had the money on him stolen; now he has nothing with which to pay for wine. Doğan's explanation draws on the conflict Sufism sets up between reason and love. The cash is reason and the wine is love; love is reached only by losing reason. On this reading the wealth the lover lost on the road is his reason, and the loss is not a ruin but a door opening onto love. The example Doğan offers for the same thought is a couplet by Ziyâî of Mostar: "Aklumun nakdin metâ'-ı aşk-ı yâra vireli / Hâce-i âlem hakı-y-çün görmedüm aslâ ziyân" (Since I gave the cash of my reason for the goods of love for the beloved, by the Master of the world, I have never suffered loss). In Avnî's couplet, however, the thought never takes the form of advice; the poet speaks to himself in bewilderment: nothing is left in his hand, yet the desire for wine has not died.

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 5, pp. 116-118 (manuscript: Millet, Ali Emîrî Manzum 305, fol. 2b). https://ekitap.yek.gov.tr/urun/fatih-divani-ve-serhi--ucuncu-baski-_794.aspx

Online sources