Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Feʿilātün feʿilātün feʿilātün feʿilün

Kemirir şiʿri şu ḫāvnendeleriñ dendānı
Iṣırır aġlatır elfāẓı leb-i ḫandānı
Laḥnı mevzūn ise de lehçesi ġayr-ı mevzūn
Ḥüsn-i ṣavtı ḳadar olsa ne olur ʿirfānı!
Ekŝerī cāhil olur dirler idi ḫaṭṭāṭıñ
Ṭoġrıdır dinse muġannīye cehūl-i ŝānī
Be-hem-i āheng ola ḥüsn-i edā, ḥüsn-i ṣadā
Biri bāḳī ise muṭlaḳ öbüridir fānī
İki niʿmet ne içün bir kişide cemʿ olmaz
İtdi ḥaḳ ʿālemi kem-behre, ġanī nādānı
Cemʿ-i uḫteyni naṣıl menʿ buyurduysa ḫüdā
Niʿmeteyne daḫı az mecmaʿ ider insānı
Cūdiyā añla cihān-dār-ı naʿīm olmadıġın
Bunda miḳdāra göre māʾide-i Rabbānī

In English

1. The teeth of these singers gnaw at poetry; the laughing lip bites the words and makes them weep.

2. Though the melody is measured, the diction is unmeasured; what would it cost if their learning were as great as their fine voice!

3. They used to say "most calligraphers are ignorant"; it is true if the singer is called "the second ignorant".

4. Let fine delivery and fine voice be in harmony together; if one endures, the other is surely fleeting.

5. Why are two blessings not gathered in one person? God made the learned scantly provided and the rich ignorant.

6. Just as God forbade joining two sisters, so He rarely makes a man the meeting place of two blessings.

7. Cûdî, understand that the world is not the abode of bliss; here the Lord's table is laid by measure.

Literary and Historical Commentary

The injustice a poem suffers when it is set to music and sung is told in this ghazal from a poet's mouth. The hânendes, the singers, gnaw at poetry with their fine voices, bite the words and make the meaning weep: their melody is measured but their diction is not, for they do not understand the poem they sing. The third couplet rests on an old saying: it used to be said that most calligraphers were ignorant, since they wrote beautifully but did not understand what they wrote; so the poet counts the singer "the second ignorant".

From the fourth couplet the ghazal arrives at a generalization: two blessings, a fine voice and learning, or wealth and wisdom, are rarely gathered in one person. The sixth couplet tells this observation with a playful legal comparison: Islamic law forbids marriage to two sisters at the same time; it is as though God had likewise forbidden two blessings to meet in one person. For this lack the closing couplet finds a consolation: the world is not a paradise where blessings are complete; here the Lord's table is laid by measure. Nothing is said about Cûdî's poems being set to music, but the ghazal shows that he lent a careful ear to poetry read and sung.

Bibliography

  • Zeynep Adıyahşi, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [43b-87b], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, p. 102 (poem no. 249; manuscript fol. 75a). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116831.pdf

Online sources