Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Câm-ı serşârını kıl başıma tâc ey sâkî
Şâh-ı Cemden ki alam bir nice bâc ey sâkî
Cür‘a-i câmın ile tab‘ımı sultân eyle
Virsün erbâb-ı sühan cümle harâc ey sâkî

In English

1. O cupbearer, make your brimming cup a crown on my head, so that I may take some tribute from King Jamshid.

2. O cupbearer, with a sip of your cup make my nature a sultan; let all the people of words pay (me) tribute.

Literary and Historical Commentary

The quatrain is like a petition for kingship. The brimming cup is to be a crown on the head, the poet is to take tribute from the legendary Iranian king Jam, that is Jamshid; a sip of the cup is to make his nature a sultan, and all the people of words are to pay him tribute. The words tâc (crown), bâc (tribute) and harâc (tax) come from the language of sovereignty. Jam's name is linked in divan poetry with his world-revealing cup, the "câm-ı Cem"; the poet's cup is strong enough to take tribute even from the owner of that cup.

The real subject of the quatrain is poetry. What is to become sultan is the poet's "tab‘", his nature that creates poetry; those who are to pay tribute are the "erbâb-ı sühan", the people of words, that is, other poets. The cupbearer's cup will make the poet supreme in poetry. In the divan's ghazals Nigârî was seen setting himself beside masters such as Örfî and Hafez; this rubai makes the same claim in the language of the tavern, as a wish asked of a cupbearer.

It is the first of the two cupbearer rubais at the end of the se section; the rhymes tâc, bâc and harâc end in the letter cim and herald the next section, the "Harfü'l-cîm". The edition records the metre as the ramal pattern "fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilün"; the refrain is once more "ey sâkî".

Bibliography

Online sources