Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Koyma teşne dili kılmaya dâd ey sâkî
Ki mey-i kâm seng-i dâd u sitâd ey sâkî
Ne revâdır ben dil-teşne[y]i nâ-kâm idesin
Yandırup virmeyesin mey-i murâd ey sâkî

In English

1. O cupbearer, do not leave the thirsty heart to cry for justice; for the wine of desire is the weighing-stone of give and take, O cupbearer. (This rendering of the second line is tentative.)

2. O cupbearer, is it right that you leave me, thirsty-hearted, without my wish, that you burn me and do not give the wine of desire?

Literary and Historical Commentary

The same word comes from two different senses in two lines. "Dâd" in the first line means in Persian justice and the cry that demands justice; "dâd kılmak" is to cry out for help. "Dâd u sitâd" in the second line is a pair formed from the Persian verbs "dâden", to give, and "sitâden", to take, and means trade, give and take. Standing once as a cry and once as giving, these words are an instance of cinas, words alike in sound and different in sense. "Seng" is the stone weight used on old scales; the wine of desire is imagined as the measure of give and take. With no gloss in the edition, this reading remains a trial.

The second couplet is a reproach. The lover whose heart has gone thirsty counts it an injustice that the cupbearer burns him and does not give him the wine of desire. "Nâ-kâm", without one's wish, and "mey-i murâd", the wine of desire, are two faces of the same longing: one the lack, the other what would fill it.

The second of the two cupbearer rubais that close the hı section puts "dâd" and "murâd" in the rhyme, as the first did. After these two quatrains, linked by the same words, the section of the letter dâl begins.

Bibliography

Online sources