Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Sâye-i âb-ı lebindendi hayât ey sâkî
İltifât-ı nazarındandı necât ey sâkî
Nola ol sâyen ile gönlümü teskîn idesin
Viresin ez pey-i Hak bâde-i zât ey sâkî

In English

1. O cupbearer, life came from the shade of the water of your lips; salvation came from the favour of your glance.

2. O cupbearer, what if you were to calm my heart with that shade, and give me for God's sake the wine of the Essence?

Literary and Historical Commentary

The last words of the quatrain, "bâde-i zât", the wine of the Essence, say something stated so openly in none of the other cupbearer rubais. "Zât" in Sufi language is God's own essence as distinct from his attributes and names; "tecellî-i zâtî", God's manifestation in his essence, is counted the highest degree of manifestation. The poet asks the cupbearer for the wine of this essence and wishes it to be given "ez pey-i Hak", for God's sake, on God's path. A two-word phrase thus reveals what the real request behind the tavern images is.

The first couplet rests on an image of shade. Life comes from the "sâye", the shade, of the water on the beloved's lips; salvation from the favour of her glance. The shade of water is an odd image: beside water in a parched desert, shade means both coolness and life. In the second couplet the same shade is named again as what will calm the heart.

Set beside the quatrain before it, this one completes the cupbearer pair for be. The two share the "-ât" rhyme (hayât, necât, zât) and prepare the passage to the te ghazals; in the edition neither carries a rubai heading. Their metre is common too: the ramal pattern "fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilün".

Bibliography

Online sources