Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Metre: Mefāʿilün mefāʿilün mefāʿilün mefāʿilün
Onuñ yüzinde müncelī şebābetiñ ṭarāveti
Odur bu köhne güzelligiñ feṣāḥati belāġati
Lebinde ḫande muʿcizen gözinde ʿişve lemʿa-pāş
O ḥüsn-i ẕī-ḥayāta müntesib bahār-ı cenneti
Sevilmeniñ ṭarīḳini düşünmedir bütün işi
Tecemmüli, tezeyyüni, tekellüfi ḳıyāfeti
Birer belīġ-i şiʿrdir gözümde her nümāyişi
Sükūn-ı ẕī-leṭāfeti, ḫirām-ı pür-şeṭāreti
Açılsa bedir tam olur ḳapansa mehr-i muḥtecib
Ne ḫōşdır ol mahıñ ṭulūʿ u iḫtifā-yı ṭalʿatı
Cemāl-i zülf-i pūşene perestiş eyleyüp geçer
Ṣabāḥımıñ ṣibāḥati, leyālimiñ leṭāfeti
O olmasa cihān gözümde lafẓā-i bī-meʾāldir
Onuñladır hemān benim ḥayātımıñ ḥalāveti
In English
1. In her face shines the freshness of youth; she is the eloquence and the rhetoric of this old (world's) beauty.
2. On her lip a smile like a miracle, in her eye a coquetry scattering gleams; the spring of Paradise belongs to that living beauty.
3. Her whole work is to think of the way to be loved: her adorning, her decking out, her taking pains, her dress.
4. In my eyes each of her displays is an eloquent poem: her graceful stillness and her joyful gliding walk.
5. When (her face) is uncovered she is the full moon, when covered the veiled sun; how sweet are the rising and the hiding of that moon's face.
6. The beauty of my mornings and the delicacy of my nights pass by worshipping the loveliness of the locks that cover her face.
7. Were she not there, the world would be in my eyes a word without meaning; the sweetness of my life is with her alone.
Literary and Historical Commentary
This time the beloved is a young woman, alive and tangible, and so these seven couplets without a pen name stand apart at once from the Sufi ghazals that make up most of the divan. Her face has the freshness of youth, she carries a smile like a miracle on her lip and a gleaming coquetry in her eye. The observation in the third couplet is of a kind rarely met in the genre: her whole work is to think of the way to be loved, and she does so through her adornment, her finery, her care and her dress. The beloved of divan poetry is mostly indifferent to the lover; this beloved wants to be loved.
The language of the ghazal again betrays the poet's profession. The first couplet describes beauty through "fesâhat" and "belâgat", the clarity and the persuasive force of language; in the fourth couplet each display of the beloved is "an eloquent poem". Cûdî, a teacher of literature, reads beauty like a text. The fifth couplet turns the face veil into an event of the sky: when the face is uncovered it is the full moon, when covered the sun behind a cloud, and both its rising and its hiding have a beauty of their own.
The last couplet is a plain confession of love: without her the world is a meaningless word, with her life is sweet. The address of this ghazal, written for an unknown person, might be considered together with the poems on marriage and family found elsewhere in the divan; but the text gives no clue on the matter.
Bibliography
- Havva Tok Yıldız, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [1b-43a], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, p. 45 (poem no. 36; manuscript fol. 13a). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116853.pdf
Online sources
