Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mefāʿīlün mefāʿīlün mefāʿīlün mefāʿīlün

Bu şeb bir ṭatlı ṣoḥbetle geçirdim vaḳtimi yatdım
Gice rüʾyāda bāl deryāsına ṭaldım çıḳup batdım
Ṣafā itdim alup ol bāl dudaḳlı yāri āġūşa
Leb-i şīrīnin öpdüm ṣanki şehdāba şeker ḳatdım
Yalanlarla bulaşdırmışdı aġzın vaʿd-ı vaṣlıyla
Yaladım yutdum az ḳaldı diyüp öpdükçe aldatdım
Yamaçlaşdı nehārım kūh-ı zehreyle ḳaranlıḳda
Elimde mūm, bir ġāre baş urdum müşkile çatdım
Gemi azıya almış ṭāliʿ-i ser-keş yola yatmaz
Bu şeb maʿnāda bindim çifte atdıḳça kötek atdım

In English

1. Tonight I passed my time in sweet conversation and went to bed; in the night, in a dream, I plunged into a sea of honey, came up and sank.

2. I took that honey-lipped beloved in my arms and made merry; I kissed her sweet lip as if I had stirred sugar into sherbet.

3. She had smeared her mouth with lies, with promises of union; saying "almost there", I licked and swallowed; as I kissed, I cheated.

4. My daytime became a slope with a mountain of gall in the dark (the line is not entirely clear); candle in hand, I struck my head against a cave, I ran into a snag.

5. Fortune, headstrong, the bit between its teeth, will not keep to the road; tonight in truth I rode it, and each time it kicked I gave it the stick.

Literary and Historical Commentary

A place to draw breath among the divan's grave poems: the "Gazel-i hezl-âmîz", a ghazal mixed with jest. After a pleasant conversation the poet goes to bed and in his dream plunges into a sea of honey; he embraces the honey-lipped beloved, and as he kisses her it is as if he had stirred sugar into sherbet. The words honey, sugar, sherbet, licking and swallowing take the love poem's conceit of "leb-i şîrîn", the sweet lip, literally and carry it into the kitchen.

In the third couplet it turns out that the beloved's promises of union are lies, but the poet too cheats her by saying "almost there". In the fourth couplet the dream turns into a nightmare: with a candle in his hand he strikes his head against a dark cave. The last couplet likens fortune to a headstrong horse that has taken the bit between its teeth; in his dream the poet rides it and gives it the stick each time it kicks. The joke of a man who brings fortune to heel in a dream but cannot master it awake carries all the lightness of the ghazal. The image in the first line of the fourth couplet could not be resolved; the translation leaves it in its uncertainty.

Bibliography

  • Zeynep Adıyahşi, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [43b-87b], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, p. 63 (poem no. 218; manuscript fol. 60b). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116831.pdf

Online sources