Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Metre: mefâîlün mefâîlün mefâîlün mefâîlün (hezec). For this ghazal without its opening, the edition gives no metre; the pattern was found by us.
Tevârîh-i Cem ü İskender itmez hâtırum hergiz
Meger câm-ı cihân-bîn eyleye anı yine rûşen
İrem bâğından u Nemrûd odından sürme efsâne
Getür ol câm-ı âteş-rengi kim ‘âlem olur gül-şen
Felek her gün çü merdân-ı cihânı zîr-i hâk eyler
Ko câm-ı merg yâdını getür bir câm-ı merd-efgen
Zemâna i‘tibâr u ‘ömre olmaz i‘timâd itmek
Hoş ol dem kim bu devr içre kılavuz devr sâgar fen
Bu ebnâ-yi zemândan kime diseñ dôst cânısuñ
Yakîn bilgil ki kendü cânuña hâzırladuñ düşmen
Çemen ra‘nâlarına ‘ömr bâğından haber yokdur
Bu hâle eşk ü nâleyle behâr elbet ider şîven
Bu dünyâ-yı denî içün niçe bir dest ü pâ urmak
Elüñe âstîn ü pâyuña mesken yeter dâmen
Bu dârü’l-hâdise içre niçe gün durmağ olursa
Hemân yeğdür ki ‘Avnî idesün meyhâne[yi] me’men
In English
2. The histories of Cem and Alexander never enlighten my mind; only the world-showing cup can make it bright again.
3. Do not tell tales of the garden of Iram and the fire of Nimrod; bring that fire-coloured cup, so that the world becomes a rose garden.
4. Since fate every day puts the heroes of the world beneath the earth, leave off remembering the cup of death and bring a cup that fells men.
5. One cannot set store by time or trust in life; how pleasant the moment when in this age the cup is the guide and wine the science (the reading is disputed).
6. Whomever of the people of this age you call "friend of my soul", know for certain that you have prepared an enemy for your own soul.
7. The beauties of the meadow have no news from the garden of life; at this the spring surely mourns with tears and moans.
8. How long will you flail hand and foot for this base world? A sleeve is home enough for your hand, a skirt for your foot.
9. However many days one is to stay in this abode of events, the best thing, O Avnî, is to make the tavern your safe refuge.
Literary and Historical Commentary
Structure of the Poem
The opening couplet did not make it into the Millet manuscript, so the poem's first couplet is lost; Doğan leaves a gap marked with dots in the text and numbers the couplets from two to nine. The eight surviving couplets are closer to a poem of wisdom than to the divan's love ghazals: they work with the transience of time, the untrustworthiness of friendship, the emptiness of striving for the world and the refuge of the tavern. There is no redif; the rhyme is in the "-en" sound of the words "rûşen, gül-şen, merd-efgen, fen, düşmen, şîven, dâmen, me'men". All eight couplets are in the four-"mefâîlün" pattern of hezec.
The second line of the fifth couplet is disputed between the editions. Kemal Edip Ünsel read its end as "devr sâgarden" and criticised Saffet Sıtkı's reading "devr-i sâgar-fen" as meaningless; Doğan, however, says that both readings are wrong and strain the sense. Doğan's text is "kılavuz devr sâgar fen", and his rendering is "the ages in which the cup is the guide and wine is counted learning and science". The translation on this page follows Doğan's reading, but the exact reading of the line is not clear.
Meaning and Figures of Speech
The first surviving couplet sets up a contrast that also says something about a ruler's reading habits: the histories of Cem and Alexander do not enlighten the mind; only the "câm-ı cihân-bîn", the world-showing cup, does. Doğan says that the histories stand for knowledge gained through reason, and the cup for love and the gnosis gained through love; he also notes that the couplet shows Mehmed II's curiosity about history and the importance he gave to reading books of world history. That a ruler who had Roman histories read to him by Italian humanists should set history books against wine gives the couplet a particular weight.
The third couplet alludes to two Qur'anic stories: the garden of Iram, which Shaddad built on pillars in imitation of Paradise, and the fire of Nimrod into which Abraham was thrown and which then turned into a rose garden. Instead of telling these legends, the cupbearer should bring the fire-coloured cup, for that cup is fire and turns the world into a rose garden; that is, it unites the two legends in itself. In the fourth couplet there is a play of sound between "câm-ı merg" (the cup of death) and "câm-ı merd-efgen" (the cup that fells heroes); while fate buries heroes in the earth every day, taking refuge in drunkenness is proposed instead of remembering death.
The sixth couplet is a harsh verdict on friendship: to call one of the people of this age "friend of my soul" is to prepare an enemy for one's own soul. There is no record that the couplet refers to any particular person or event; the verdict is a variety of the complaint about the "faithless world" frequent in divan poetry. The seventh couplet is a hüsnütalil of autumn: no news comes to the flowers of the meadow from the garden of life, that is, they die; and the rain and wind of the season are a lament sung over this death. The eighth couplet takes apart the idiom "dest ü pâ urmak" (to flail hand and foot) into its words: a sleeve is home enough for the hand, a skirt for the foot. Doğan ties this to the Sufi ideal of "one morsel, one cloak". In the last couplet all these verdicts are tied to the tavern; in the ever-changing "dâr-ı hâdise", the abode of events, the only safe refuge is the tavern.
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 56, pp. 415-419 (manuscript: Millet, Ali Emîrî Manzum 305, fol. 18a; the opening couplet is missing in the manuscript). https://ekitap.yek.gov.tr/urun/fatih-divani-ve-serhi--ucuncu-baski-_794.aspx
Online sources
