Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mefāʿīlün mefāʿīlün mefāʿīlün mefāʿīlün

Meẓāhirde uluʾl-ebṣāra sırrı eynümā peydā
Degil ʿālemde Rabbü’l-ʿālemīnden māʿadā peydā
Müşāhid-i şāhid ġayb u şuhūduñ cilve-gāhıdır
İder ẓāhirle bāṭın birbirin peydā vü nā-peydā
Şuhūduñ mā-verāsından suʾāl itme taḫayyüldür
Münezzeh rüʿyet ü taḫyīlden bir kibriyā peydā
Şuhūdı setr ile Rabb-i muḫayyilden nişān ṣorma
Olur deşt-i ṭalebde mevc-zār-ı "len terā" peydā
Sen isterseñ de: ẓāhir āfitāb, envārı nā-meşhūd
Ben istersem derim: Envār-ı peydā şems-i nā-peydā
Sen isterseñ de: Rūḥumla ḳıyām itmekdedir cismim
Ben istersem derim: Rūḥumda cisme intimā peydā
Ne neʿamdır ki eyler niʿmetin tervīc-i niʿmetle
Ṭabīʿatda ġazādan evvel eyler iştihā peydā

In English

1. In the manifestations, to those who have insight, the secret of "wherever you turn" is plain; in the world nothing but the Lord of the worlds appears.

2. The beholder and the witness alike are the place where the unseen and the seen display themselves; outer and inner make each other both visible and hidden.

3. Do not ask about what lies beyond the seen; that is imagination; a majesty free from sight and from imagining appears.

4. Do not veil the seen and ask for a sign of an imagined Lord; in the desert of seeking a sea surging with "You shall never see Me" appears.

5. If you wish, say: the sun is plain, its lights unseen; if I wish, I say: the lights appear, the sun is unseen.

6. If you wish, say: my body stands through my spirit; if I wish, I say: in my spirit a belonging to the body appears.

7. What a (subtle) blessing it is, that He makes His blessing precious through blessing; in nature He creates appetite before food.

Literary and Historical Commentary

This ghazal, the first poem of the section in Adıyahşi's thesis, that is, of the second half of the manuscript, sums up the divan's idea of the unity of being in a dense language. The opening couplet alludes with the word "eynemâ" to the verse of the sura al-Baqara, "Wherever you turn, there is the face of God" (2:115): those who have insight see the same secret in every manifestation, and nothing appears in the world but the Lord. The refrain "peydâ", in its sense of appearing and coming to light, carries the subject of the whole ghazal.

The fourth couplet rests on the scene in the sura al-A'râf in which Moses asks to see God and receives the answer "You shall never see Me" (7:143); in the desert of seeking this answer turns into a sea of waves. The fifth and sixth couplets set two views side by side with the pattern "if you wish, say; if I wish, I say": the relation between sun and light, between spirit and body, changes according to the side from which one looks. The last couplet is taken from a kıta in the first half of the divan; the copyist wrote in the margin that the couplet "was made the second couplet of a kıta above". It closes the ghazal with a concrete example taken from the order of nature.

Bibliography

  • Zeynep Adıyahşi, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [43b-87b], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, p. 24 (poem no. 183; manuscript fol. 43b). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116831.pdf

Online sources