Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Feʿilātün feʿilātün feʿilātün feʿilün

Ey miŝālim, ne ʿarażsın ne de cevhersin sen
Ẓıll iseñ de hele bir ẓıll-ı münevversin sen
Ben ne yapsam anı derḥāl idiyorsun taḳlīd
Ne tuḥafsın beni taḳlīde heves-gersin sen
Naẓar itdikce saña ben baña manẓūr olurum
Bendeki şekl ü edā bendeki peykersin sen
İkimiz bir mi veyā her birimiz başḳa mıyız
Sende mersūm benim bende muṣavvirsin sen
Sen misin yoḳsa żamīrim ki olursın ẓāhir
Yoġiken āyīne ya nerde muḳaddersin sen
Baña sen vehle-i evvelde göründüñ maʿrūf
Çeşm-i diḳḳatle baḳıldıkca münekkersin sen
Bundan evvel seni ben başḳa görürdüm şimdi
ʿĀcabā ben mi degişdim ki muġayyersin sen
Yek-mizācız o ḳadar gülsem idersin ḫande
Ben mükedder isem elbette mükeddersin sen
ʿĀşıḳım āh saña āh der-āġūş idemem
Eremem vuṣlatıña ġayr-ı müyessersin sen
Aramızda ser-i mū farḳ u tefāvüt yoḳdur
Rū-nümā āyinedir ṣanma ki dīgersin sen
Var iken ortada ben sen olamazsın mevcūd
Sende ẓahir benim ancaḳ baña maẓharsın sen

In English

1. O likeness of mine, you are neither accident nor substance; if you are a shadow, you are at least a shining shadow.

2. Whatever I do you imitate at once; how strange you are, so eager to imitate me.

3. As I look at you I appear to myself; you are the shape and manner in me, the body in me.

4. Are we two one, or is each of us another? It is I who am painted in you, and you who are the painter in me.

5. Is it you who appear, or my own inner self? Where are you when there is no mirror?

6. At first glance you seemed familiar to me; the more closely I look, the stranger you become.

7. Before this I used to see you otherwise; now, have I changed, I wonder, that you have changed?

8. We are so alike in temper that if I laugh you laugh; if I am sad, surely you are sad.

9. I am in love with you, ah, but I cannot embrace you; I cannot attain union with you, you are not granted to me.

10. There is not a hair's breadth of difference or distance between us; it is the mirror that shows the face, do not think you are other than me.

11. While I am here you cannot exist; what appears in you is I, you are only a place of my manifestation (mazhar).

Literary and Historical Commentary

Talking to the Face in the Mirror

This ghazal titled "Âyîne Karşısında" (In Front of the Mirror) is one of the most modern-looking poems in the divan. The poet addresses his own image in the mirror and speaks with it for eleven couplets. The subject is not foreign to divan poetry, the mirror is one of the old poetry's favourite images; but here the mirror ceases to be a means of comparison and becomes the poem's interlocutor. The image is an imitator, familiar and strange, laughing when he laughs, sad when he is sad.

The first couplet opens in the language of philosophy. In kalâm and philosophy beings are divided into "cevher", substance that stands by itself, and "araz", accident that exists in another; the image in the mirror fits neither, it is only a shining shadow. Painter and painting change places in the fourth couplet: it is I who am painted in you, and you who are the painter in me. The seventh couplet adds the voice of old age to the poem. The poet sees that the face in the mirror has changed and asks: have I changed, I wonder? The bewilderment of a man who has looked into the same mirror for years fits into this single line.

The love of the mirror in the ninth couplet recalls the legend of Narcissus: one who loves his image cannot embrace it. The last two couplets tie the conversation to Sufism. There is not a hair's breadth of difference between mirror and face, and while "I" am present the image can have no separate being; it is only a "mazhar", a place of manifestation. This last word opens onto the thought of the unity of being, in which the relation of God and world is explained through the image of the mirror, and carries the ghazal from a personal scene to a thought about being.

Bibliography

  • Havva Tok Yıldız, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [1b-43a], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, pp. 42-43 (poem no. 32; manuscript fol. 12a). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116853.pdf

Online sources