Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fāʿilātün fāʿilātün fāʿilātün fāʿilün

Kadbedā bi’l-ʿışḳ fiʾl ekvān küllemā bedā
Medd ü cezir ʿaşḳdandır iltimāʿ vü inṭivā
ʿAşḳdır ol baḥr-ı aʿẓam kim añın emvācıdır
Bu pey-ā-pey ḥādiŝāt u bu dem-ā-dem mācerā
Māye-i ḥilḳat ḥaḳīḳatde ḫamīr-i ʿaşḳdır
Zerreler mecẕūb u cāẕib necmler cünbiş-nümā
Sırr-ı zevci vaḥdet-i mevlūd ile aḫbār imiş
Eylemişdir vaḥdet-i zevcine ʿaşḳı mübtedā
Ey ṣanan ḫāli hevā-yı ʿaşḳdan dil-ḥānesin
Söyle cāy-ı cān olur mı ḫāne-i ḫāli hevā
Ḥürr-i muṭlaḳ varsa ʿālemde esīr-i ʿaşḳdır
ʿAşḳ ḳānūnında mülġādır revā vü nā-revā
Sırr-ı ʿaşḳı eylediñ taḥḳīḳ ʿaşḳ olsun saña
Āşinā-yı ḥaḳḳ imiş Cūdī meger ʿaşḳ āşinā

In English

1. (Arabic) Whatever has appeared among beings has appeared through love; ebb and flow come from love, both the shining forth and the folding away.

2. Love is that greatest sea whose waves are these events following one upon another and these adventures lived moment by moment.

3. The leaven of creation is in truth the dough of love; motes are both drawn and drawing, stars are in motion.

4. The unity of the newborn child, they say, tells the secret of the pair; (the Creator) has made love the beginning of the unity of the couple.

5. O you who think the house of your heart empty of the air of love! Tell me, can a house void of air be a home for the soul?

6. If there is anyone in the world utterly free, he is love's captive; in the law of love "permitted" and "forbidden" have been abolished.

7. You have searched out and found the secret of love: bravo to you (aşk olsun); Cûdî, it turns out that whoever knows love knows God.

Literary and Historical Commentary

An Answer to Fuzûlî

The "Nazîre-i Gazel-i Fuzûlî" of the title says that these seven couplets are a response, in the same metre and rhyme, to a ghazal by Fuzûlî. The thesis does not indicate which of Fuzûlî's ghazals was taken as the model; Cûdî's response moves in the four-foot pattern of remel and rhymes on bedâ, intivâ, mâcerâ, nümâ, mübtedâ, hevâ, nâ-revâ and âşinâ. Fuzûlî's Turkish divan is known to contain ghazals that open with an Arabic line; Cûdî's building his first line in Arabic fits this custom.

The subject of the ghazal is love seen as a cosmic force, and in this respect it is close to the poem of praise at the opening of the divan. Love is the greatest sea and events are its waves; the dough of creation is kneaded with love, motes draw one another and stars move. The phrase "meczûb u câzib" (drawn and drawing) in the third couplet recalls both the Sufi notion of rapture (cezbe) and the force of attraction; in other poems by Cûdî too the concepts of the new science meet the old images. The fourth couplet brings the same idea down to man: from the union of two partners a child is born, and this child tells the secret of the pair through unity.

The fifth couplet plays on the word "hevâ" in its two senses: air and desire. A heart empty of the air of love is like an airless house; no soul can live in it. The sixth couplet, through a paradox, counts love's captive as utterly free. The "aşk olsun" of the last couplet is both the idiom still used today meaning "bravo" and, in the literal sense of the words, a blessing: may love be yours. From here the poet reaches the conclusion that whoever knows love knows God.

Bibliography

  • Havva Tok Yıldız, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [1b-43a], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, pp. 22-23 (poem no. 10; manuscript fol. 5a-6b). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116853.pdf

Online sources