Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Feʿilātün feʿilātün feʿilātün feʿilün

Cümlesi maḥrem ü meʾnūs babam, annemdir
Diyemem dehrde bir ẕerreye bīgānemdir
O ḳadar ṭabʿıma uyġun bu bisāṭ-ı tertīb
Ẕevḳimiñ ṣanki binā itdigi kāşānemdir
İki dünyayı baña eylemiş Allāh temlīk
Bu medār-ı ḥarekātım, o sükūn ḫānemdir
Bu feżāya çıḳışım ṣayd-ı kemāl itmek içün
Ḫāḳ u eflāk u kevākib ṭuzaġım, dānemdir
Dehri tenvīr iden efkārıma cemʿ olmuşlar
Encüm-i çarḫ-ı berīñ, bir süri pervānemdir
Meclis-i ʿālemi sīrāb-ı füyūż eylemege
Ḳadeh-i mihr-i münevver ṭolu peymānemdir
Ṣuver-i ḥādiŝe-i fikr ü ḫayālimdir hep
Cūdiyā her ne görürseñ benim efsānemdir

In English

1. All are intimate and familiar, my father, my mother; I cannot say that a single mote in the world is a stranger to me.

2. This carpet of order is so suited to my nature, as if it were a mansion built by my taste.

3. God has given me both worlds as my own; this one is the axis of my movements, that one my house of rest.

4. My going out into this space is to hunt perfection; earth, heavens and stars are my snare and my bait.

5. The stars of the highest sphere have gathered round my thoughts that light the world; they are a flock of my moths.

6. To slake the assembly of the world with graces, the cup of the shining sun is my brimming measure.

7. All are forms that have come to be from my thought and fancy; Cûdî, whatever you see is my tale.

Literary and Historical Commentary

"Şatahât" is the name in Sufism for words said in a state of ecstasy that go beyond the outward sense; such words of Sufis like Bâyezîd of Bistâm and al-Hallâj were the subject of both admiration and debate. Under this title Cûdî writes his own "shath"s in the form of a ghazal, and the poem's language knowingly strains the bounds. Everything in the universe is familiar to the poet, his mother and father; this order is like a mansion built by his taste; God has given him both worlds as his own.

From the fourth couplet on, the self grows ever larger: earth, heavens and stars are the snare the poet has set to hunt perfection; the stars of the highest sphere are moths circling his thoughts; the sun is the cup from which he pours grace for the assembly of the world. The closing couplet binds all these words to a judgement: "Whatever you see is my tale." This is an ecstatic expression of the idea of unity, which says that being is a mirror and that man sees in everything the image of his own inner world. The title itself also gives the reader a warning: these words are to be understood not by their outward sense but by the state in which they were said. The same poet who attacks the corrupted state of Sufism in harsh terms uses the shathiye knowingly, as a chosen kind of poem.

Bibliography

  • Zeynep Adıyahşi, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [43b-87b], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, pp. 67-68 (poem no. 221; manuscript fol. 62a-62b). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116831.pdf

Online sources