Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fāʿilātün fāʿilātün fāʿilātün fāʿilün

Meh-cebīnler seyr idüp gīsū-yı ḥamlar görmüşüz
Şāmlar, şebler geçirmiş ṣuḥb-demler görmüşüz
Yoḳladıḳ yoḳdur birinde şemme-i bū-yı vefā
Biz bu gülşende hezārān ġonce-femler görmüşüz
Kūy-ı tecrīde nigāristān-ı çīnden geçmişiz
Hey ne dil-keş dil-rübā dil-ber ṣanemler görmüşüz
Bezm-i rezminden geçüp İskender ü Dār ellerin
Ser-nigūn olmuş ʿālemler cām-ı Cemler görmüşüz
Her geçen mecrūḥ geçmiş bu güzer-gehden meger
Naḳş-ı pā-yı evvelīn üstünde demler görmüşüz
Yaptıġın yāre döner bir gün yapar aġyāra da
İtmeyiz inkār devrānda ne keremler görmüşüz
Görmediñ Cūdī ṣarīr-i ḫāme-i ġālib gibi
Gerçi çoḳ şīrīn nevānīler ḳalemler görmüşüz

In English

1. We have gazed on moon-browed beauties and seen curling locks; we have passed evenings and nights and seen dawns.

2. We tested them: not one has a trace of the scent of faithfulness; in this rose garden we have seen thousands with rosebud mouths.

3. We came to the quarter of detachment by way of the picture gallery of China; ah, what heart-catching, heart-stealing idols we have seen.

4. Passing through the feasts and battles of Alexander and Darius, we have seen banners (and worlds) turned upside down and the cups of Jamshid.

5. It seems that all who passed this way passed wounded; we have seen blood on the footprints of those who went before.

6. What (the sphere) does to the beloved it one day turns and does to strangers too; we do not deny what favours we have seen in this age.

7. Cûdî, you have never seen the like of the scratching of Gâlib's pen; though we have seen many pens sweet-voiced like the reed flute.

Literary and Historical Commentary

The redif (refrain) "görmüşüz", we have seen (so it seems), turns this ghazal into the account of an old man listing what he saw while roaming the world. The first person plural and the reported past tense give the words both experience and distance: moon-faced ones, curling locks, rosebud mouths have been seen, but in none was the scent of faithfulness found. The "kûy-ı tecrîd" of the third couplet is the quarter of withdrawal from the world, and to reach it one first had to pass through the picture gallery of China, that is, through a world full of idols of beauty.

The fourth couplet adds the great scenes of history to the same list. The feasts and battles of Alexander and Darius have been passed through, and "ser-nigûn olmuş âlemler", banners and worlds turned upside down, have been seen; "alem" means banner, "âlem" world, and the same spelling carries both senses at once. The word "dem" in the fifth couplet is also double: both blood and moment. The blood on the footprints of those who went before says that every traveller on the same road has been wounded.

The pen-name couplet is an open witness to Cûdî's poetic taste. Many sweet-voiced pens have been seen, but nothing like the scratching of Gâlib's pen. The eighteenth-century Mevlevî poet Şeyh Gâlib was, for Cûdî's generation, the last great master of classical poetry. That Gâlib's name is mentioned in Cûdî's divan alongside Fuzûlî, Nâilî and Nigârî shows to which lineage he tied his own poetry.

Bibliography

  • Havva Tok Yıldız, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [1b-43a], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, p. 39 (poem no. 28; manuscript fol. ). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116853.pdf

Online sources