Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mefāʿilün feʿilātün mefāʿilün feʿilün

Şikāf-ı levḥa-i maḥfūẓ iden cenānımızı
Nücūm-ı vaḥy ile zeyn itmiş āsumānımızı
Menāfiẕ-i lemaʿātüʾs-serāʾir-i ḥaḳdır
Sever ṣanma görüp nūr-ı kehkeşānımızı
Baḳıñ nasıl aḳıdır mevce mevce feyż-i dili
Medār-ı kilk-i beyān eyleyin benānımızı
Midād-ı ḫāme-i ḥaḳdır ʿanāṣır-ı ʿālem
Yazar ḳavālib-i maʿnāyı cāvidānımızı
Sürūş-ı ḳūvve-i terkīb vaḥl-ı ʿunṣurdur
Faḳaṭ ifāża ḳılan ḥaḳdır āb-ı cānımızı
Neşāṭ-ı rūḥumuz elfāẓ-ı kevne sāriyedir
Görüñ ne rütbe müʾeŝŝir mey-i revānımızı
Ne neşʾedir heyecān-baḫş olan cemādāta
Ne nefḫadır pür iden nā-yı nāv-dānımızı
Egerçi medd-i ṣadā eyledi ezel ebede
Henūz geçmedi meydān-ı bī-kerānımızı
Uzandı her ṭarafa dür-bin-i nūr-ı merŝūd
Henūz görmedi serḥad-ı bī-nişānımızı
Nevā-yı bülbül-i ḳudsīye āşinā yoḳdur
Ġarīb yirlere yapmışlar āşiyānımızı

In English

1. He who made our heart an opening onto the Preserved Tablet has adorned our sky with the stars of revelation.

2. (The stars) are windows onto the gleams of God's secrets; do not take the light of our Milky Way for a common spectacle. (The opening of the second line could not be read with certainty.)

3. See how the bounty of the heart flows, wave upon wave; make our fingers the support of the pen of expression.

4. The elements of the world are the ink of God's pen; that pen writes our eternal moulds of meaning.

5. The angel of the power of composition lies in the clay of the element; but it is God who pours forth the water of our soul. (The first line is not entirely clear.)

6. The joy of our spirit flows into the words of being; see how potent our flowing wine is.

7. What joy is this that gives excitement to lifeless things; what breath is this that fills our reed flute?

8. Though (this melody) has stretched its voice from eternity past to eternity to come, it has not yet crossed our shoreless field.

9. The observatory's telescope of light has reached out in every direction; it has not yet seen our traceless frontier.

10. There is none who knows the song of the holy nightingale; they have built our nest in strange places.

Literary and Historical Commentary

These ten couplets titled "Bir Nevâ", a melody, form a ghazal that speaks in the first person plural and ties the human heart to the sky and to the writing of the universe. The heart is a crack opening onto the Preserved Tablet, the sky a page adorned with the stars of revelation, and the elements of the world the ink of God's pen. The image of writing spreads through the whole poem: fingers become the support of the pen of expression, and ink writes the eternal moulds of meaning.

The poem's most striking couplets are those that express the immeasurability of the divine melody and the human spirit through the instruments of the new science. The eighth couplet's melody has stretched from eternity past to eternity to come but cannot cross "our shoreless field"; in the ninth the observatory's telescope of light has reached out in every direction, yet has not been able to see "our traceless frontier". Observatory and telescope are words of nineteenth-century astronomy; Cûdî uses them to prove the boundlessness of the spirit. In the sixth and seventh couplets the joy of the spirit stirs lifeless things and becomes the breath that fills the reed flute.

The last couplet closes the ghazal with a feeling of exile. No one knows the song of the holy nightingale, and the spirit's nest has been built in strange places. This is an old thought that recalls the soul's fall into the world and the separation of Rûmî's reed from the reed bed; the word "nevâ" in the title prepares this musical association from the start. In the second and fifth couplets one word each, as the thesis gives it, is at odds with the context, and the English stays cautious there.

Bibliography

  • Havva Tok Yıldız, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [1b-43a], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, pp. 46-47 (poem no. 38; manuscript fol. 13b-14a). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116853.pdf

Online sources