Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Çâre ne kalmadı bir zerrece tâb ey sâkî
Kanı ol kuvvet-i cân bâde-i nâb ey sâkî
Ayağ al zulmet-i hicrânı perîşân eyle
Câm-ı ser-şâr ile tîz eyle şitâb ey sâkî

In English

1. O cupbearer, no remedy is left, not a mote of strength remains; where is that strength of the soul, the pure wine?

2. Take up the cup and scatter the darkness of separation; O cupbearer, be quick with a brimming cup, make haste.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Like the preceding quatrain, this is the second cupbearer rubai closing the elif section, and it keeps the same rhyme: "tâb, nâb, şitâb". In both quatrains "bâde-i nâb" or "mey-i nâb", pure wine, enters the rhyme; in the first the cup is asked for, in this one that wine is named "kuvvet-i cân", the strength of the soul. Together they read like a single plea to the cupbearer before the poems rhyming in be begin. Pervane Bayram writes that all these rubais are sâkînâmes and that placing rubais regularly among the ghazals in this way is particular to Nigârî.

The second couplet of the quatrain sets two opposites side by side. "Zulmet-i hicrân" is the darkness of separation; wine is the light that will scatter it. Seeing wine as light is frequent in divan poetry: red wine in the cup shines like a sun, a tulip or a fire. In "ayağ al" the word ayak again means cup. The phrase "tîz eyle şitâb" in the last line, be quick, make haste, closes the quatrain with a call of impatience; the lover's strength to wait has run out as well.

The quatrain's real request lies in its unrhymed third line: "Ayağ al zulmet-i hicrânı perîşân eyle." The other lines end on the refrain "ey sâkî"; the metre, as in its companion rubai, is the ramal pattern "fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilün".

Bibliography

Online sources