Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Feʿilātün feʿilātün feʿilātün feʿilün

Ḥareket başḳadır ol āfetiñ endāmında
Çalḳanır rūḥ-ı revān cism-i ṣafā cāmında
Ḳadd-i mevzūn mı ya fevvāre-i selsāl-i ḥayāt
Ḳabarır mevceleri ṣadr-ı semen-fāmında
Ne tenāsüb ne leṭāfet ne ḫırām-ı dil-keş
İçim oynar ḳadınıñ cünbişi hengāmında
Neresi noḳṭa-i maṭlūbe-i sevdā bilemem
İnbisāṭ eyler emel cisminiñ aḳsāmında
Gözine düşdi gözüm ayrılamaz bir dürlü
Ḳapanup ḳaldı göñül aġzınıñ ibhāmında
Beni bir pīr-i ḫazān-dīde iden ṣubḥ-ı bahār
O ṣabāḥatle güler ʿömrümüñ aḳşāmında
Ḳıṣma belli o siyeh çāre bürünse yürise
Cūdiyā mevcelenir ṣubḥ-ı emel şāmında

In English

1. Motion is something else in the figure of that charmer; the flowing soul surges in the cup of her body of delight.

2. Is it a measured stature, or a fountain of the flowing water of life? Its waves swell in her jasmine-coloured breast.

3. What proportion, what grace, what heart-drawing gait! My insides dance whenever the woman moves.

4. I cannot tell which is the sought-for point of passion; hope spreads through every part of her body.

5. My eye fell upon her eye and cannot part from it in any way; the heart was shut in and stayed in the obscurity of her (tiny) mouth.

6. The spring morning that made me an old man who has seen autumn laughs with that beauty in the evening of my life.

7. Should that slim-waisted one wrap herself in her black wrap and walk, Cûdî, the morning of hope ripples in the evening.

Literary and Historical Commentary

A woman's walk: that is the subject of one of the most bodily of the divan's love poems. From the first couplet on, the word dwells on motion: motion is something else in the beloved's figure; her body is a cup and the soul surges within it. The second couplet compares stature and fountain: the measured stature is like a fountain spurting the water of life. The word "kadın", woman, in the third couplet is an everyday and direct word little used in divan poetry; instead of the "beloved" of the language of conceits, the poet sees a real woman.

The sixth couplet ties the ghazal to the theme of old age: the time that made the poet an old man who has seen autumn meets, in the evening of his life, the beauty of a spring morning. The expression "siyeh çâre" in the last couplet, though not entirely certain as read in the thesis, suggests the black çarşaf, the woman's outer wrap: even the walk of a slim-waisted woman wrapped in her çarşaf is like a morning rippling in the evening. An old poet's eye still open to beauty forms the ghazal's tone, both heartfelt and a little self-mocking.

Bibliography

  • Zeynep Adıyahşi, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [43b-87b], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, p. 93 (poem no. 244; manuscript fol. 71b). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116831.pdf

Online sources