Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Subha dek yandı gönül kanı sabûh ey sâkî
Kanı ol kût-ı gönül kuvvet-i rûh ey sâkî
La‘line leyte vü le‘al sözin alma zîrâ
Bizde yok ‘ömr-i Hızır müddet-i Nûh ey sâkî

In English

1. O cupbearer, the heart has burned until dawn, where is the morning wine; where is that food of the heart, the strength of the soul?

2. O cupbearer, do not take the words "would that" and "perhaps" upon your lips; for we have neither the life of Khidr nor the span of Noah.

Literary and Historical Commentary

The second couplet of the quatrain plays with two words of Arabic grammar. "Leyte" means would that; "le‘alle" means perhaps, and they are particles named side by side in Arabic grammar books. The poet tells the cupbearer not to take these two words upon her lips: "would that" is a dallying with the past, "perhaps" with the future. The lover has no time; neither Khidr's immortal life nor the long span of Noah, said to have lived nine hundred and fifty years, has been given to him. The wine must not be postponed but offered now.

"Sabûh" in the first couplet is the morning wine; in divan poetry it is the name of the first cup drunk towards dawn. The heart has burned until morning and now awaits this cup, which is "kût-ı gönül", food of the heart, and "kuvvet-i rûh", strength of the soul. In a Sufi reading morning is the time of awakening and of divine bounty; the morning wine becomes the name of that bounty.

This is the first of the two cupbearer rubais that close the cim section. Its rhyme (sabûh, rûh, Nûh) ends in the letter "hâ" (ح) and announces the next section, the "Harfü'l-hâ", in advance. This arrangement, seen at every passage between letters in the divan, makes the cupbearer rubais into links joining the sections together.

Bibliography

Online sources