Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mef'ûlü fâilâtü mefâîlü fâilün (muzâri). As the edition does not write the pattern down, this identification is ours.

Sâkî pür eyle câm-ı şerâb-ı mugânei
Ma‘mûr kıl harâba varan kâr-hânei
Ey pîr-i deyr ehl-i harâbâtı mahrem it
Keşf eyle bâde sırrını terk it behânei
Bî-hodluk itseler eger esrâr-ı câm ile
Mest eyle sunmağ ile mey-i bî-hodânei
Ol mey ki levh-i dilden ala şüst ü şûy ile
‘Ayş-ı mugânei vü cefâ-yı zemânei
Gör mey ferâğını nazar it sakf-ı deyre kim
Nâr-ı Kelîmden diler iseñ zebânei
‘Avnî o bezme varmağa lâyık degülse ger
Men‘ itmeñüz ki bâri öpe âstânei

In English

1. Cupbearer, fill the cup of the Magian wine; make flourish the workshop (the heart) that has come to ruin.

2. O elder of the temple, make the people of the tavern your intimates; reveal the secret of wine, leave off excuses.

3. If (they) pass beyond themselves with the secrets of the cup, make them drunk by offering the wine that takes one out of oneself.

4. That wine which, washing and cleansing, removes from the tablet of the heart the pleasure lived in Magian fashion and the cruelty of the age.

5. If you desire a tongue of flame (or a tongue) from the fire of Moses (Kelîm), see the pouring out of the wine, look to the upper storey of the temple (the tavern).

6. Even if Avnî is not worthy to come to that gathering, at least do not prevent him from kissing the threshold.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The rhyme of the ghazal is the "-ânei" sound of the words "mugânei, kâr-hânei, behânei, bî-hodânei, zemânei, zebânei, âstânei"; this unusual rhyme, built with the accusative suffix added to the end of Persian adjectives, gives the ghazal a heavy and ornate sound. Its metre is muzâri, over six couplets. The whole ghazal is built from the Sufi symbols of the tavern; Doğan explains in each couplet both the literal and the figurative meanings of the words.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet turns wine into an architect. The cupbearer is asked to fill the cup with wine as red as the Magian fire, thereby rebuilding the house of the heart that has begun to fall into ruin. Doğan recalls that in divan poetry love comes like an architect to the heart ruined by separation and rebuilds it, and that this comparison is also seen in the divan's twenty-first, thirty-third and fifty-seventh ghazals. In the second couplet the "pîr-i deyr", the old monk of the church, is in reality the tavern-keeper and figuratively the sheikh of the dervish lodge or God; the "ehl-i harâbât" are the travellers on the Sufi path, and the "secret of wine" is love, the cause of existence. In the third couplet those who learn this secret and pass beyond themselves must be offered "mey-i bî-hodâne", the wine that takes one out of oneself. In the fourth couplet this wine washes the mirror of the heart; Doğan notes that in Sufism "şüst ü şûy" (washing) means casting off thoughts that come from fault, and "'ayş" (pleasure) the delight born of intimacy with God.

The fifth couplet is one of those Doğan explains at greatest length. "Sakf-ı deyr" literally means the ceiling or upper hall of the church; when "deyr" is taken as the tavern, it means the upper floor of the tavern or the mouth of its great wine casks. Quoting Çaylak Tevfik's İstanbul'da Bir Sene and Reşad Ekrem Koçu's Eski İstanbul'da Meyhaneler, Doğan relates that in old taverns wine was kept in very large casks and jars, that the tavern boys climbed ladders to the mouths of the casks to draw wine with buckets, and that some taverns had balconies reached by a few steps and upper floors for honoured customers. "Ferâğ" is the pouring of a liquid into vessels. "Nâr-ı Kelîm" is the fire that Moses saw beside a tree on Mount Sinai; Moses went there hoping to bring his family a brand from that fire and heard the voice of his Lord. "Zebâne" means both a tongue of flame and a tongue, speech; the couplet thus calls up both a flame from the fire and Moses' converse with God. Climbing the ladder to the mouth of the cask and pouring wine resembles climbing Sinai and taking a flame from the fire; the line "Tûr-ı 'ışka çıkalum" (let us climb the Sinai of love) in the fifty-third ghazal builds the same comparison.

Humility marks the last couplet. Even if Avnî is not worthy to join that gathering, at least he should not be prevented from kissing the threshold. Doğan notes that the word "âstâne" means, besides threshold, a dervish convent and lodge, and that kissing the threshold, held sacred, on entering the lodge was part of the etiquette of the lodge.

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 70, pp. 499-505 (manuscript: Millet, Ali Emîrî Manzum 305, fol. 21b). https://ekitap.yek.gov.tr/urun/fatih-divani-ve-serhi--ucuncu-baski-_794.aspx

Online sources