Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilün

Sâkî kim elde ayağ oynadı atdı ekdâh
Sundu mey-hârlara zevk-i safâ-yı ervâh
Şâm ervâh-ı mey-âşâmîler şâd kılup
Câm-ı rûhânîlere dökdi şerâb-ı efrâh
‘Âkıbet câm-ı Cemi kırdı benim başımda
Ol kadar öpdüm ayaklarını kıldım ilhâh
Hatarât-ı emevî vesvese-i şeytânî
Nâ-pedîd oldu hurûc itdiği mey ke's-sifâh
Kâşifâne bugün ol pîr-i ma‘ârif söyler
Muglakãtı der-i meyhânede eyler îzâh
Erinî erinî diyeriz tâlib-i dîdârlarız
Feth kıl perde-i maksûdumuzu yâ Fettâh
Ayağ ey bâde-peres al ki der-i mistabede
Muntazır Mîr Nigârînin elinde miftâh

In English

1. The cupbearer made the cup in her hand dance and tossed out the goblets; she offered the wine-drinkers the pleasure of the souls' delight. ("Ayağ" means both cup and foot; the cupbearer's dancing feet are also heard.)

2. At evening, gladdening the souls of the wine-drinkers, she poured the wine of joys into the cups of the spiritual ones.

3. In the end she broke the cup of Jamshid upon my head; I kissed her feet so much, I pleaded so long.

4. The Umayyad thoughts, the whisperings of Satan, vanished when the wine came forth as if poured out of the cup. (The second line has been understood approximately.)

5. Today that elder of knowledge speaks like one who unveils; he explains the obscure questions at the tavern door.

6. "Show me, show me," we say, we are seekers of the vision; O Opener, open the veil of our desire.

7. Take the cup, O worshipper of wine, for the key of the tavern door waits in Mîr Nigârî's hand.

Literary and Historical Commentary

In the sixth couplet Nigârî repeats twice "Rabbi erinî", Lord, show Yourself to me, the words spoken by Moses on Mount Sinai. That request, told in the sura al-A'raf, was answered with "Len terânî", you shall not see Me, and it is the best-known instance in Sufi poetry of the longing to see God. The poet makes the words his own and speaks for a whole company: "we are seekers of the vision". Yet in a ghazal fragment quoted by Hüsameddin, Nigârî had said the very opposite: "Rabbi ernî dimezem matlab-ı Mûsâyam men", I do not say Lord, show me, I am the one Moses sought. In two poems by the same poet the same verse is asked for in one place and set aside in the other. The first speaks from the station of the seeker, the second from the station of one who has arrived.

God is addressed in the couplet as "yâ Fettâh", O Opener; in the last couplet the key of the tavern door, "miftâh", is in Nigârî's hand. Fettâh, feth (opening) and miftâh come from the same Arabic root and follow one another in the rhyme. The work of opening is thus first asked of God and then found in the poet himself. The "pîr-i ma‘ârif", elder of knowledge, of the fifth couplet likewise explains the closed questions at the tavern door. The ghazal seems to follow the order of a Sufi gathering: the cupbearer hands round the cup, the souls rejoice, the elder speaks, the disciples ask for the vision, and the key waits in the master's hand.

The "hatarât-ı emevî", Umayyad thoughts, of the fourth couplet should be read together with the poems Nigârî wrote out of love for the Prophet's family. His stance against the Umayyad line, held responsible for Karbala, is plain in his divan; here wine wipes from the heart the evil thoughts named after that line, together with Satan's whisperings. The edition offers no gloss on "ke's-sifâh" at the end of the line, and we have not been able to settle its meaning.

From ekdâh to miftâh, every rhyme word (ekdâh, ervâh, efrâh, ilhâh, sifâh, îzâh, Fettâh, miftâh) closes on the Arabic letter "hâ" (ح), and the divan's section for that letter begins here. The word "ayağ" in the first and third couplets plays on its two senses, cup and foot: the cupbearer makes the cup dance, and the lover kisses the feet of the cupbearer who has broken the cup on his head.

Bibliography

Online sources