Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fāʿilātün fāʿilātün fāʿilātün fāʿilün

Ḫayradır āʾyān-ı enfüs āyet-i āfāḳdan
Sādedir āfāḳ hem enfüsdeki eẕvāḳdan
Her müsemmā bir ḫuṣūṣi neşʾeye itmiş hübūṭ
ʿĀleme destūr olunca cennet-i ıṭlāḳdan
Vāḳıf-ı māhiyyet eẕvāḳ-ı yek-dīger degil
Her ṭabīʿat ẕevḳ-i maḫṣuṣunda istiġrāḳdan
Eylemek mümkün mi istiʿdād ẕāt-ı inḥirāf
Neşʾe-yi ʿilmiyyede sebḳ eyleyen miŝāḳdan
Vaṣl-ı ʿayn-ı ŝābiteñdir aṣla ricaʿtden murād
Ṣafvet aṣale taḳarrübdür ġaraż aḫlāḳdan
Çarpılub Cūdī helāk oldı hezārān mürġ-hūş
Saṭḥı dāḫil ẓann idüp āyīne-i berrāḳdan

In English

1. The signs of the inner world (enfüs) are better than the sign of the outer horizons (âfâk); the horizons are also empty of the delights within the self.

2. When a law was laid down for the world from the paradise of the absolute, every named thing descended into a joy of its own.

3. Since every nature is absorbed in its own particular delight, none knows the essence of the other's delight.

4. Is it possible for the capacity of an essence to swerve from the covenant (mîsâk) that went before in eternal knowledge?

5. The aim of returning to the root is to reach your eternal reality (ayn-ı sâbite); the purpose of ethics is to draw near to the purity of the origin.

6. Cûdî, thousands of birds of the mind perished by dashing against the surface of the clear mirror, taking it for the inside.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Âfâk and enfüs, the outer world and the inner, are among the first words of these six couplets, one of the densest Sufi ghazals in the divan. The first couplet takes the distinction from the Qur'anic verse "We shall show them Our signs on the horizons and within themselves" (Fussilat 41:53); the poet counts the signs of the inner world more precious, because the delights of the inner world are absent from the outer.

The fourth and fifth couplets speak in the terms of the tradition of Ibn Arabî. "Mîsâk" is the covenant the souls made with God before creation; "ayn-ı sâbite" is the eternal reality of each being in God's knowledge. Through a question the poet says that a being's capacity cannot swerve from this eternal covenant, and defines man's "return to the root" as reaching his own ayn-ı sâbite. Ethics too is the way of this return, a drawing near to the purity of the origin.

The last couplet ties this abstract thought to a striking scene. Thousands of birds of the mind have died by dashing against the surface of the clear mirror, taking it for a passage opening inward. The everyday sight of birds striking a window pane tells the fate of the mind that takes appearance for truth itself and tries to pass behind the mirror of manifestation. Turning such an observation into a classical image shows Cûdî's ability to carry new observations into his old language.

Bibliography

  • Havva Tok Yıldız, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [1b-43a], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, p. 43 (poem no. 33; manuscript fol. 12b). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116853.pdf

Online sources