Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Feʿilātün feʿilātün feʿilātün feʿilün

Nigeh-i mestiniñ āhū gibi perverdesi var
Ġamze-i şūḫunuñ ammā nice rem-gerdesi var
Ṭaranırken ruḫ-ı ṭābendesin örter giysū
Nitekim ẓulmet-i şebden güneşiñ perdesi var
Peyker-i dilberi ezhār-ı mehāsin demeti
Sünbülü, Nergisi yanlarda birer verdesi var
Ḳays u ferhād olamaz ʿaşḳda hem-renk-i emel
Güzeliñ sādesi, şīrīni, siyeh-çerdesi var
Dil-nevāz olduġı dillerde gezer cānānıñ
Cūdiyā ḥalbuki biñlerce dil-āzürdesi var

In English

1. Your drunken glance has the gentle rearing of a gazelle; but your coquettish wink has many it has startled away.

2. As she combs, her tresses cover her shining cheek, just as the sun has a curtain made of night's darkness.

3. The beloved's figure is a bouquet of the flowers of beauty; it has its hyacinth, its narcissus, and a rose at each side.

4. Kays and Ferhad cannot share one colour of hope in love; beauty has its plain kind, its sweet (Shirin) kind and its dark kind.

5. That the beloved caresses hearts goes round on every tongue; and yet, Cûdî, she has thousands whose hearts she has hurt.

Literary and Historical Commentary

A contrast in every couplet: that is how this ghazal handles the familiar material of classical love poetry. In the first couplet the beloved's glance is like a tamed gazelle, but her wink startles many away. In the second the combed tresses cover the cheek, just as night is a curtain to the sun. The third couplet sees the beloved's body as a bouquet: the hair a hyacinth, the eye a narcissus, the cheeks each a rose.

The fourth couplet is the wittiest: the loves of Mecnûn (Kays) and Ferhad do not resemble each other, for beauty too has its kinds: the plain, the "şîrîn" and the dark. The word "şîrîn" means sweet and is also the name of Shirin, Ferhad's beloved; "siyeh-çerde", dark-skinned, recalls the darkness associated with the name of Leylâ. So it is said that each lover finds his own beauty. The closing couplet ends with an irony: everyone says that the beloved caresses hearts, yet she has thousands whose hearts she has hurt.

Bibliography

  • Zeynep Adıyahşi, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [43b-87b], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, p. 83 (poem no. 232; manuscript fol. 68a). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116831.pdf

Online sources