Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Sâḳî getür getür yine dünki şarâbumı
Söyle dile getür yine çeng ü rebâbumı
Ben var iken gerek baña bu ẕevḳ u ṣafâ
Bir gün gele ki görmeye kimse türâbumı

In English

1. O cupbearer, bring, bring again my wine of yesterday; make my harp and my rebab (my stringed instruments) speak again, make them sing.

2. This pleasure and delight I need while I am alive; a day will come when no one will see my dust (my grave).

Literary and Historical Commentary

Its Place in the Tezkires

These two couplets calling for yesterday's wine are, of all the poems given to Murad II, the ones that can be traced to the oldest records. Sehî Beg, in the Heşt Bihişt he completed in 945 (1538), opens the second section (tabaka), devoted to poet sultans, with Murad II and says of him "eş'ârı vâfir ve nazma kâdir pâdişâh idi" (his poems were plentiful and he was a sultan able in verse); he then quotes first a matla (opening couplet) and then, with the words "these couplets too are among his poems", these two couplets. Eight years later Latîfî, describing how Murad II produced fitting lines of verse at his gatherings of conversation and wine, gives only the first couplet and calls it a "matla". Kınalızâde Hasan Çelebi, in his anthology dated 994 (1585-86), repeats the same couplet among the sultan's "one or two poems". That it is the only piece found in all three biographical anthologies of poets (tezkire) shows that the couplet was widely known under Murad II's name in the sixteenth century.

The text is given here from the edition of Sehî; the special typeface of that edition has been converted to standard transliteration. The sources differ in small but meaningful ways. In Latîfî the first line reads "Sâkî getür yine dünki şarâbumı", and the repeated "getür" has dropped out; Latîfî and Kınalızâde read "Söylet" instead of "Söyle" in the second line, and Kınalızâde also has "getür berü" instead of "dile getür". In his entry in the Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü (Dictionary of Names in Turkish Literature), Mustafa İsen gives the two couplets under the heading "Kıt'a" (quatrain) and reads the third line "Ben var iken gerek bana bu zevk u bu safâ".

Form and Metre

The rhyme scheme suggests that the piece is the opening of a ghazal (gazel): the two lines of the first couplet rhyme with each other ("şarâbumı / rebâbumı"), and the last line of the second couplet carries on the same sound with "türâbumı". In a kıt'a the first couplet does not rhyme within itself; Latîfî's calling the first couplet a "matla" supports this reading. The redif (refrain word) is the suffix "-umı", and the rhyme is the sound "-âb" (şarâb, rebâb, türâb).

The anthologists name no metre; it is our own scansion that places the lines in the pattern "mef'ûlü fâilâtü mefâîlü fâilün" of the muzâri metre of aruz (quantitative metre). In Sehî's text the third line falls one syllable short, while İsen's reading "bu zevk u bu safâ" completes the pattern. Whether this is a copying variant or a later correction cannot be decided from the sources at hand. The single "getür" in Latîfî likewise leaves the first line short of the pattern.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The couplets speak from inside a drinking gathering (meclis). The phrase "dünki şarâb" (yesterday's wine) recalls the gathering of the previous day and its intoxication; the poet wants to recreate the same merriment. Wine is asked of the cupbearer and sound of the instruments: there is a congruence of images (tenasüp) between "çeng ü rebâb" (harp and rebab) and the wine, both indispensable features of the gathering in divan poetry. In the expression "söyle dile getür" the instruments are made to speak, a stringed instrument is given a tongue, which is an instance of personification.

The second couplet gives the pleasures of the gathering a justification through the thought of death. Pleasure and delight have meaning only "ben var iken", while I am alive; a day will come when no one will see even the grave, when name and dust are forgotten. The opposition between wine and earth is not stated outright but placed in the rhyme: the "şarâb" of the first couplet finds its counterpart in the "türâb" (dust) of the second. Sehî's portrait of Murad II as "gâyet mertebede ayyâş", a sultan extremely fond of pleasure, entertainment and conversation, agrees with the mood of these couplets.

Historical Context

Latîfî and Kınalızâde relate that Murad II gathered scholars and poets two days a week, holding learned debates on some days and poetic conversation on others. Latîfî says that the sultan's own lines arose "esnâ-i sohbetde ve evkât-ı ıyş u işretde", that is, in the course of conversation and at times of pleasure. That the couplets were spoken at one of these gatherings agrees with the account of the anthologists; but which gathering and what date are not known. Murad II's life is told in Murad II: The Sultan Born in Amasya Who Took the Throne Twice; all the poems that the tezkires and later transmissions give to him are listed in Murâdî (Sultan Murad II): Poet and Works.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Official sources

  • Sehî Beg, Heşt Bihişt, ed. Halûk İpekten, Günay Kut, Mustafa İsen, Hüseyin Ayan, Turgut Karabey, Ankara: Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Türkiye, 2017 (e-book), p. 14, entry Sultân Murâd Hân-ı Gâzî. https://ekitap.ktb.gov.tr/Eklenti/56165,hest-bihistpdf.pdf

Books

  • Mustafa İsen, "Murâdî, II. Murâd, Sultân Murâd-ı Sânî bin Çelebi Sultân Mehmed-i Evvel", Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü, 2014 (updated 2020), "Eserlerinden Örnekler" (quoted from Mustafa İsen, A. F. Bilkan, T. I. Durmuş, Sultanların Şiirleri, Şiirlerin Sultanları, Istanbul: Kapı Yayınları, 2012, pp. 23-26). https://teis.yesevi.edu.tr/madde-detay/muradi-ii-murad-sultan-muradi-sani

Online sources