Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mefʿūlü mefāʿīlü mefāʿīlü feʿūlün

Beyhūde ararlar anı āfāḳ üzerinde
Ne yirde ne gökde ne de nüh ṭāḳ üzerinde
Ol nūr-ı münezzeh bu ḳuyūdāta ṣıġışmaz
Peyveste tecellī ider ıṭlāḳ üzerinde
Bī-meşrıḳ u maġrib ne güneşdir ki ilāhī
Tā rūz-ı ezelden bizi işrāḳ üzerinde
Bir başḳa göz ister göre vech-i beḳāyı
İşbu ṣuver dāʾim ola meḥāḳ üzerinde
Ḥüṣrān göze mi ʿāʾid olur ruʾyet-i hestī
Bir şey görinür mi semm ü tiryāḳ üzerinde
Maʿşūḳına ṣor kim ne ḫafāya ider ibrāz
Bir ḫande ki parlar leb-i müştāḳ üzerinde
Ḳarşıñdakiniñ cismine baḳdıḳda görürsüñ
Göñlündeki merdüm-i berrāḳ üzerinde
Bir başḳa görüşler bulunur gözlerimizde
Teşrīḥ anı yazmaz henüz evrāḳ üzerinde
Rūşen görür āŝārını cennetle ceḥīmiñ
Ervāḥı temāşā iden aḫlāḳ üzerinde
Nīrān u cinān ṣanma yer altında semāda
Cūdī yüriyor dāʾim iki sāḳ üzerinde

In English

1. In vain do they seek Him on the horizons; neither on earth nor in the sky nor above the nine vaults of heaven.

2. That transcendent light does not fit into these limits; it manifests itself without pause upon the absolute.

3. What a sun it is, with neither east nor west, that has been shining upon us, O God, since the day of eternity.

4. To see the face of permanence another eye is needed; these forms are always on the verge of vanishing. (The last word of the second line could not be read with certainty.)

5. Does the fault in seeing being belong to the eye? Does anything show on poison and antidote? (The couplet is not entirely clear.)

6. Ask his beloved: what hidden thing does a smile shining on a yearning lip reveal?

7. When you look at the body of the one before you, you see him on the clear pupil of the eye of your heart.

8. There are other kinds of seeing in our eyes too; anatomy has not yet written them down on paper.

9. Whoever contemplates spirits through their characters sees plainly the works of Paradise and Hell.

10. Do not think the hells and the paradises are under the earth or in the sky; Cûdî, they are always walking about on two legs.

Literary and Historical Commentary

A Paradise Walking on Two Legs

The ghazal opens by rejecting the effort to place God somewhere in space: it is vain to seek Him on the horizons, on earth, in the sky or above the nine vaults of heaven, for this light fits no limit. The "sun with neither east nor west" of the third couplet recalls the tree "neither of the east nor of the west" in the sura al-Nûr (24:35), and says that the divine light has been shining since eternity without rising or setting.

The second half of the ghazal reflects on looking and seeing. In the seventh couplet the body of the person before one is seen in the clear pupil of the heart; in the eighth it is said that our eyes hold other kinds of seeing which anatomy, the science of dissection, has not yet put on paper. Anatomy, taught in the Ottoman medical schools at the end of the nineteenth century, is mentioned here as a science that cannot measure inner sight. In Cûdî's poems the language of science is often used in this way, to show its limit.

The last two couplets state the ghazal's most striking idea. Whoever contemplates spirits through their characters sees the works of Paradise and Hell; for Paradise and Hell are not under the earth or in the sky, they "walk on two legs". A person of good character is a walking Paradise, a person of bad character a walking Hell. This last word, which makes the hereafter visible in human character, also joins the thought at the start of the ghazal that God is sought in vain far away.

Bibliography

  • Havva Tok Yıldız, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [1b-43a], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, pp. 44-45 (poem no. 35; manuscript fol. 12b-13a). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116853.pdf

Online sources