Original Ottoman Turkish Text

The text in Kınalızâde's anthology:

Yine sâkî mey-i gül-gûna yasak var gibi
Bâdenün katresi yok la‘l-i leb-i yâr gibi

The text given by Hüsameddin on the authority of the Zeyl-i Şakâyık:

Yine sâkî mey-i gûlgûne yasak var gibi
Bâdenin katresi yok la'l-i leb-i yâr gibi

In English

1. Cupbearer, it seems that once again rose-coloured wine is forbidden; like the ruby lip of the beloved, there is not a drop of wine.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Opening like the reproach of a carefree drinker (rind) who can find no wine in the tavern, the couplet turns to the beloved in its second line. In divan poetry "la‘l-i leb" (the ruby lip) is likened to wine both in colour and in taste; the lover cannot get a drop from it either. The second line has two distinct meanings: nothing in wine is like the beloved's lip, that is, no wine can take that lip's place; or, just as nothing falls to the lover from the beloved's lip, not a drop of wine is left. The second reading uses the word "yok" (there is none) in the senses of both scarcity and withholding, and lets the couplet set its two deprivations, the absence of wine and the absence of union, side by side.

The phrase "once again ... it seems forbidden" recalls the wine bans proclaimed from time to time in Ottoman cities. There is no record showing whether the couplet points to a particular ban; the word "gibi" (as if) also keeps the situation at the level of a comparison. The refrain is built on the sounds "var gibi / yâr gibi", and because both lines end on it, the couplet belongs at the opening of a ghazal.

This opening couplet is the only one of Şeyhî's couplets found in both sources. Kınalızâde gives it with the note "Velehû"; Hüsameddin quotes it under the heading "Beyit" on the authority of Atâyî's Zeyl-i Şakâyık. The differences between the two texts are matters of sound and spelling: "gül-gûna / gûlgûne", "bâdenün / bâdenin". We have not been able to see Atâyî's continuation, Hüsameddin's source, directly. What the two sources say about the poet is set side by side in Şeyhî (Tayyibzâde).

Bibliography

Online sources