Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fāʿilātün fāʿilātün fāʿilātün fāʿilün

Ḥavvā ki ẕāt-ı Ādeme ʿarż-ı ḥanān ider
Ādem de ol ḥanāne fedā-yı cān ider
Bir yirde kim şarāb-ı viṣāle mesāġ yoḳ
Ẓann itme ʿaşḳ o yirde temennā-yı nān ider
Ḥaḳḳıñ cemāli neşʾesidir ʿaşḳ nāmına
Dāʾim ṭavāf-ı ḳalbe ricāl ü zenān ider
Vāreste-i ḳuyūd ider insānı ʿaşḳ-ı pāk
Şehvet behīmedir ki nehiydir ʿinān ider
ʿAşḳıñ tecellīyāt-ı ġarāʾib-nümāsını
Seyr et ki īn çünīn gehi ān çünān ider
Şeyḫe medār ḥalḳa-i ẕikr ü semāʿ olur
Dervīşi pāykūb u celācil zenān ider
Derk eyleyin daḳāyıḳ-ı esrār u ḥiddeti
Ẕevḳ-i şuhūd u kesb-i ṣafā-yı cenān ider
Meşhūd olur muvaḥḥide tevhīd-i nūr-ı ẕat
Ḥīn-i şehādetinde müşār-ı benān olur
Aṣl-ı kemāle ʿaşḳdır eñ muḥṭaṣar ṭarīḳ
Cūdī egerçi rāh-ı kemāl iftinān olur

In English

1. Eve offers her tenderness to the person of Adam; and Adam sacrifices his life for that tenderness.

2. Where there is no leave for the wine of union, do not think love will go begging for bread.

3. What is called love is the joy of God's beauty; men and women for ever circle the heart for its sake.

4. Pure love frees man from fetters; lust is a beast, and (love) reins it in with prohibition. (The reading of the second line is doubtful.)

5. Watch the strange-seeming manifestations of love, how it makes this one thus and that one so.

6. (Love) becomes for the sheikh the cause of the circle of remembrance and of the samâ'; it makes the dervish one who stamps his feet in dance and rings the bells.

7. Grasp the subtleties of the secrets and of wisdom; (love) brings the taste of contemplation and wins the heart's delight.

8. The unity of the light of the Essence becomes visible to the one who professes God's oneness; at the moment of witness it becomes what the finger points to.

9. Love is the shortest road to the root of perfection; Cûdî, though the road to perfection branches in many ways.

Literary and Historical Commentary

The ghazal opens by taking love back to the first scene of creation: Eve offers tenderness to Adam, and Adam gives his life for that tenderness. The first love in human history thus becomes the first appearance of divine love on earth. The second couplet guards love's dignity; even where the wine of union is forbidden, love does not stoop to begging for bread. In the third couplet "ricâl ü zenân", men and women, are named together, and both circle the heart as if it were the Kaaba. Cûdî's setting woman and man side by side in the same scene of worship agrees with the outlook of the praise poem at the opening of the divan, which counts the union of woman and man as a display of divine praise.

The fourth couplet separates pure love from lust: love loosens fetters, while lust is a beast that must be reined in. The sixth couplet brings a concrete scene from Sufi life. Love gives the sheikh the circle of remembrance and the samâ' (ritual of music and turning), and gives the dervish the turning with stamping feet and the ringing of bells. The eighth couplet describes the raising of the finger of witness as the moment when the profession of God's oneness becomes visible.

The last couplet states the ghazal's thesis: of the roads to perfection the shortest is love, however many branches those roads may divide into. In the last two couplets the refrain ends with "olur" instead of "ider". Since the refrain is strictly kept in the divan's other ghazals, this may be a slip in writing or in reading; it cannot be decided without seeing the manuscript.

Bibliography

  • Havva Tok Yıldız, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [1b-43a], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, pp. 36-37 (poem no. 25; manuscript fol. 9b-10a). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116853.pdf

Online sources