Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mefāʿilün feʿilātün mefāʿilün feʿilün

Bahār geldi çiçekler tebessüm itdi yine
Māʾil-i şiʿr-i ṭabīʾat tecessüm itdi yine
Havāda mecmereler gezdirir sır-veş bahār
Meşām-ı cāne ṣafālar tenessüm itdi yine
Cibāl ü deşt bütün meşhed-i bedāyiʿdir
Leṭāfet üzre leṭāfet teressüm itdi yine
Giyüp maḥāsinin ezhār-ı ẕī-ḥayāt gezer
Mesīrelerde güzeller tevessüm itdi yine
Tenezzühi severim Cūdī ya bu mevsimde
Bahār geldi çiçekler tebessüm itdi yine

In English

1. Spring has come, the flowers have smiled again; the meaning of nature's poem has taken bodily form again.

2. Spring carries censers about in the air; delights have breathed again on the soul's sense of smell.

3. Mountains and plains are from end to end a place for viewing wonders; delicacy upon delicacy has been painted again.

4. The living flowers go about wearing their beauties; in the pleasure grounds the fair ones have decked themselves out again.

5. Cûdî, in this season I love to stroll; spring has come, the flowers have smiled again.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Among the divan's heavy philosophical poems, this five-couplet spring ghazal is a place to catch one's breath. Its subject is the season alone: the flowers smile, censers drift through the air, mountain and plain become a sight to see, the pleasure grounds fill with fair ones in their finery. The words "itdi yine" (did again) in the refrain announce that spring is an event that returns every year and that the poet is welcoming it once more.

The first and last lines of the ghazal are the same: "Bahâr geldi çiçekler tebessüm itdi yine", spring has come, the flowers have smiled again. The poem ends where it began, and this repetition carries nature's cycle into the poem's construction. The first couplet describes spring as "the taking of bodily form by the meaning of nature's poem"; in a poet's eye nature is a text to be read, and spring is that text becoming visible. The word read "Māʾil-i" in the thesis should in this context be understood as "me'âl", meaning.

The rhyme words (tebessüm, tecessüm, tenessüm, teressüm, tevessüm) come from the same Arabic pattern and sound to the ear like a chain of sounds. Smiling, embodiment, breathing, being painted and adorning oneself follow one after the other; so the ghazal can almost be read as a play on words. In the pen-name couplet the poet brings himself into the scene with a plain sentence saying that he loves to stroll in this season.

Bibliography

  • Havva Tok Yıldız, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [1b-43a], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, pp. 43-44 (poem no. 34; manuscript fol. 12b). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116853.pdf

Online sources