Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Feʿilātün feʿilātün feʿilātün feʿilün

Medeniyyet dimek ʿavratlara yüz virmekdir
Yalıñız olsa da zen nezdine er girmekdir
Zen ü zen-pāreyi serbest bırakmak yaʿnī
Merd ü zen birbirine şöyle ḳolay irmekdir
Medeniyyetde ḥarem, maḥrem ü nā-maḥrem yoḳ
Ḳadını ʿarż idüp enẓāra begendirmekdir
Ḳadına ḥürmet imiş böyle mümāşāt-ı ḥarām
Bir çiçekmiş ki anıñ leẕẕeti düşirmekdir

In English

1. Civilization means indulging women; it means a man going in to a woman even when she is alone.

2. Setting free the woman and the woman-chaser, that is, man and woman reaching each other this easily.

3. In civilization there is no harem, no lawful and unlawful company; (civilization) is displaying woman and having her admired by the eyes.

4. Respect for women, it seems, is such forbidden indulgence; (woman) is a flower whose pleasure lies in plucking it.

Literary and Historical Commentary

These four couplets, whose title is "Latîfe", a joke, are quoted in Zeynep Adıyahşi's thesis as an example of the nâ-tamâm (incomplete) ghazals in Cûdî's divan, ghazals of fewer than five couplets without a pen name. Their subject is one of the most debated questions in the Ottoman press of the late nineteenth century: the relation of the word "civilization" (medeniyet) to the place of women in social life. The redif (refrain) "-mekdir", is ...-ing, builds a defining sentence, and each couplet gives a definition of the form "civilization means this".

The poem's definitions are mocking and written from a conservative outlook. Civilization is defined as indulging women, letting woman and man reach each other easily, abolishing the harem and the distinction between lawful and unlawful company, and displaying woman to the eyes. The last couplet turns the phrase "respect for women" upside down: this respect is in fact forbidden indulgence, and woman is seen as a flower whose pleasure lies in being plucked. This last comparison seems to aim the criticism less at women themselves than at those who see them as an ornament; the text leaves both readings open.

The word "latîfe" in the title sets the poem's tone and asks that it be read as a witticism. Similar mocking poems against Westernization are found elsewhere in Cûdî's divan; the ghazal criticizing those who know Hugo and Shakespeare but not al-Ghazâlî is one of them. These four couplets carry into the present a voice from the side of tradition in the debates on women of the Tanzimat and Constitutional periods.

Bibliography

  • Havva Tok Yıldız, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [1b-43a], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, p. 90 (poem no. 65; manuscript fol. 31a). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116853.pdf
  • Zeynep Adıyahşi, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [43b-87b], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, p. 7. http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116831.pdf

Online sources