Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Toķat ķal’asında śabûhîyi vir ŧolu
Bâşed ki śubha irüre Taŋrı śafâyile

In English

1. In the castle of Tokat pour the morning wine (sabûhî) brimful; it may be that God will bring us to the dawn in joy.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The couplet is quoted in Nevzat Özkan's article with the reference KBD 74/7 and comes from the ghazal section of the divan. Since its lines do not rhyme, it is not the opening couplet of the ghazal (gazel). As Ergin's edition could not be consulted, the whole ghazal cannot be given, and the source does not give the metre. The couplet is one of the places in which the name of Tokat occurs in the divan. The poet's divan, its editions and his other poems are discussed in Kadı Burhaneddin: Literary Persona, Divan and Poems.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The couplet speaks in the language of a drinking gathering. "Śabûhî" is wine drunk in the morning; in divan poetry the morning drink is the sign of a merry gathering that carries the night's conversation into the morning. The poet asks the cupbearer to pour the cup full, and in the second line wishes that God may bring them to the dawn in joy. Özkan explains the couplet as "pour the morning drink in the castle of Tokat; it may be that God will bring us to the morning in joy".

The phrase "bâşed ki" in the second line is a Persian formula meaning "it may be that, one hopes that"; the placing of a Persian phrase within a Turkish couplet is a small example of the poet's manner of using the two languages together. The words "śabûhî" and "śubh" (morning) come from the same root and call to each other in the couplet; a congruence of images (tenasüp) in sound and sense is set up between the morning drink and the wish to reach the dawn. The word "śafâ" too, with its senses of joy and purity of heart, completes the mood of the gathering. What is said here about this congruence and the bilingual expression is our own observation. The naming of a castle together with a drinking gathering suggests that the couplet is not an ordinary depiction of a gathering but bears the trace of a particular moment of victory.

Historical Context

According to Özkan, the castle of Tokat, besieged in 1388, is remembered in this couplet with a celebration of victory. The sources give different dates for the sieges of Tokat. The TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi writes that Kadı Burhaneddin besieged the city until the spring of 1382 to bring to obedience the emir of Tokat, who had opposed him, and besieged it once more in the summer of the same year, when he was put in difficulty because the castle's warden came to terms with the Mongols; according to the same article, Kadı Burhaneddin later married his sister to the lord of Tokat castle, and the castle's warden came to Sivas to declare his allegiance. After which siege or which settlement the couplet was written is not known.

Bibliography

Online sources