Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mefʿūlü mefāʿilün feʿūlün

Sākī yine ḥayretim füzūndur
Peyveste-i rütbe-i cünūndur
Her laḥẓa-i taḳlibāt gerdūn
Bir bādire-i dīger nümūndur
Sākī müteḥassir şarābım
Ẕerrāt gözümde dāġ-ı ḫūndur
Tebḫāle-i meyden özge her şey
Müstevcib-i ʿuḳde-i derūndur
Gerdūn gerdūne-i tezelzül
Devrān deverān-ı bī-sükūndur
Bir sāḥa-i pür-nigāre düşdüm
Her naḳşı fesāne vü füsūndur
Meydir baña ḫayr-ı zād u reh-ber
İdrāk ise hemre-i zebūndur

In English

1. Cupbearer, my bewilderment has grown again; it has come to border on the rank of madness.

2. Every moment of the sphere's turning things upside down is the sign of yet another calamity.

3. Cupbearer, I long for my wine; the motes in my eyes are bloody wounds.

4. Everything but the froth of the wine breeds a knot, a distress within. (The reading of the word opening the line is not certain.)

5. The sphere is a cart of tremors; time is a turning that never rests.

6. I have fallen into a square full of painted figures; every figure is a tale and a spell.

7. Wine is my best provision and guide; perception is a feeble companion on the road.

Literary and Historical Commentary

A Short-Lined Sâkînâme

The sâkînâme tradition, which opens by addressing the cupbearer and takes wine as a refuge from the confusion of the world, lives on in these seven couplets in shortened form. The short metre, familiar from the Leylâ and Mecnun mesnevis, ends each couplet quickly, like a sigh. The first couplet, in which the line between bewilderment and madness grows thin, sets the poem's tone: the more the poet tries to understand the world, the more his bewilderment grows.

The second and fifth couplets describe the sphere through two different comparisons. Every turn of the sphere is an example of a new calamity; the sphere is a "gerdûne-i tezelzül", a cart of tremors, and time a turning that never stops. Setting "gerdûn" (sphere) beside "gerdûne" (cart), and "devrân" (time) beside "deverân" (turning), shows a taste for paronomasia built with words of one root. For the sixth couplet the world is a square full of painted figures, and every figure a tale, a spell; the deceptiveness of appearance is told in the language of painting.

The last couplet gives the ghazal's conclusion: wine is the best provision and guide, while perception is a feeble companion who leaves one halfway along the road. This choice between reason and rapture recurs in many poems of the divan; here it is said solely through the tavern motif. In the third and fourth couplets one word each, in the form the thesis gives, will not enter the sentence; the English makes no claim to certainty there.

Bibliography

  • Havva Tok Yıldız, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [1b-43a], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, p. 38 (poem no. 27; manuscript fol. 10a-10b). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116853.pdf

Online sources