Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Meclis-i ‘uşşakı ‘aşkuñ câmıdur pür-şûr iden
Çeşm-i mestüñ neş’esidür ‘âlemi mahmûr iden

In English

1. It is the cup of love that fills the gathering of lovers with tumult; and it is the intoxication of your drunken eye that makes the whole world languid with wine.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The couplet is the opening couplet (matla) of a ghazal. The redif (refrain word) is "iden" (which makes), and the rhyme is the sound "-ûr" in the words "pür-şûr" and "mahmûr". This opening couplet does not appear in Hüsameddin's entry; TEİS quotes it, together with Edâyî's other couplets, from Mustafa İsen's edition of Gelibolulu Âlî's Künhü'l-Ahbâr. The text is given here in the transliteration of TEİS. The rest of the ghazal and the person to whom it was addressed are unknown. The source does not indicate the metre.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The two lines of the couplet are built in parallel. In the first line "meclis-i 'uşşâk" (the gathering of lovers) and "câm" (cup) stand opposite, in the second "'âlem" (the world) and "çeşm-i mest" (the drunken eye); the first line ends with "pür-şûr" (full of tumult and passion), the second with "mahmûr" (languid, dazed after wine). There is thus a widening from the gathering to the world, from the cup to the eye: the cup of love stirs only one gathering, while the beloved's eye carries the whole world away.

In divan poetry the beloved's eye is often called "mest" (drunken) and "mahmûr" (languid of glance); with its look this eye intoxicates a man like wine. The word "neş'e" here means less joy than the light intoxication that wine gives. The poet sets this image within the scene of a gathering; the words "câm, neş'e, mest, mahmûr" (cup, intoxication, drunk, languid) form a congruence of images (tenasüp) around wine. This analysis is our own.

Historical Context

Kınalızâde and Hüsameddin describe Edâyî as a man with a fine voice, versed in music, who graced gatherings. This opening couplet, built on images of the gathering and of wine, recalls the poet's place in the convivial gatherings of Prince Mustafa and later of Piyâle Pasha; but there is no record that the couplet was composed for a particular gathering. Âlî gives this couplet as an example in his entry belittling Edâyî's poetry; Hüsameddin, for his part, objects to this judgement. For the poet's life see Edâyî Receb Bey.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Online sources