Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fâʿilâtün fâʿilâtün fâʿilâtün fâʿilün (identification of the metre is ours)

Neylerüm ol bezmi k'anuñ sâḳî-i meh-rûsı yoḳ
Yâ şu meclisden n'olur kim muṭrib-i ḫoş-gûsı yoḳ

In English

1. What use to me is that gathering which has no moon-faced cupbearer; or what comes of this assembly which has no sweet-voiced musician?

Literary and Historical Commentary

Meaning and Figures of Speech

Zekâî defines a good gathering not by listing what it should contain but by lamenting what it lacks. In the first line the missing figure is the moon-faced cupbearer (sâkî), in the second the sweet-voiced musician (mutrib). Since the cupbearer was a handsome youth who served the wine and the mutrib a musician who played and sang, the couplet sets side by side the two pillars of the old drinking party: one speaks to the eye, the other to the ear. "Bezm" and "meclis" are two words of the same meaning, and they bind the two halves of the couplet together. The compound adjectives "meh-rû" (moon-faced) and "ḫoş-gû" (sweet-spoken) are built on the same pattern; in one beauty is praised, in the other the voice.

The two questions in the couplet are reproaches that expect no answer. The poet does not count a gathering without cupbearer and musician as a gathering at all; this can be read as the voicing of a disappointment, or as a ruling on the etiquette of the table. There is no context to show which was intended.

Structure of the Poem

The couplet is the opening couplet (matla) of a ghazal (gazel); both lines end with the refrain word (redif) "-sı yoḳ", and the rhyme falls on the sounds "rû" and "gû". The rest of the ghazal is unknown. Latîfî gives it, with the words "this matla is his", as the only ghazal specimen of Zekâî's poetry. The edition of the biographical anthology of poets (tezkire) does not indicate the metre; the lines fit the remel metre of aruz (quantitative metre).

Historical Context

Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar takes this matla from Latîfî in Amasya Tarihi and gives a few words in his own reading: "Neylerim ol bezmi k'ânun sâki-i meh-rûsı yok / Ya şu meclisden n'olur ki mutrib-i hoş-gûsı yok". The poet was divan secretary to Prince Alemşah, son of Bayezid II, and the prince's gatherings for conversation and entertainment are mentioned in the sources. It is tempting to imagine the couplet recited at such a gathering, but no record in the sources shows this. What is known of the prince's secretary is gathered on the page Zekâî Ahmed Çelebi.

Bibliography

Online sources