Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mefāʿilün feʿilātün mefāʿilün feʿilün

Göñülde oynar o şūḫuñ yed-i muḥannāsı
Derūne işledi tā ḳarşıdan temennāsı
Laṭīf-i ḥumret-i ʿiṣmetle şuʿle-rīz ḥicāb
Naṣīb-i ʿaşḳ olacaḳ sīb-i nā-mücennāsı
Yazar cemāl-i cemīlinde ḳalb-i pür-şeġafı
Ki lafẓa ḥüsn ile ẓāhirdir ʿaşḳ-ı maʿnāsı
Kitāb-ı ʿaşḳda müferridle cemʿe yer yoḳdur
Gelir dü-cins-i muḫālifle hep müŝennāsı
Çerāġ-ı sīnesi rūşendi leyl-i elyelde
Nehārı ḳısa ḳarañu gösterdi leylāsı
Ṣafā-yı dil gibidir çār-ı nīk içinde o şūḫ
Ḥicāba girse de nūruñ ʿayān tecellāsı
Nigāh-ı ʿiṣmeti taʿvīẕ-i dildir ey Cūdī
Taʿalluḳ itse yaḳar sīnelerde ḫannāsı

In English

1. That coquette's hennaed hand plays in the heart; her greeting from across the way has pierced my very insides.

2. A blush of modesty that scatters flame with the delicacy of chastity; her unplucked apple will be the portion of love.

3. Her lovely face writes the heart full of passion; for the meaning of love appears in the word through beauty.

4. In the book of love there is no place for the singular or the plural; its dual always comes with two opposite genders.

5. The lamp of her breast was bright in the darkest night; her short day showed her Leylâ (her night) dark (the couplet is not entirely clear).

6. That coquette in her good veil is like the serenity of the heart; though she enter behind the curtain, the manifestation of her light is plain (the line is not entirely clear).

7. Cûdî, her chaste gaze is an amulet for the heart; if it touches, it burns the slinking whisperer in the breasts.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Chastity and beauty are praised together in this love poem. The beloved's hennaed hand and her greeting made from afar pierce the poet's heart; the colour on her cheek is a blush of modesty, and the image of the "unplucked apple" expresses an untouched purity. The third couplet builds a comparison between word and meaning: the beautiful face is a word, and the meaning of love appears in that word.

The fourth couplet is a witty judgement taken from Arabic grammar: in the book of love there is no singular or plural, only the "müsennâ", the dual, and this dual is always made of two opposite genders. This habit of the teacher-poet of carrying grammatical terms into love poetry is seen in other ghazals of the divan as well. The theme of chastity is sealed in the last couplet with an image of protection: the beloved's chaste gaze is an amulet for the heart and burns the "hannâs", the slinking whisperer named in the sura al-Nâs, Satan. In the fifth and sixth couplets the reading of a few words in the thesis is not certain; the translation shows these places.

Bibliography

  • Zeynep Adıyahşi, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [43b-87b], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, p. 106 (poem no. 254; manuscript fol. 76a). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116831.pdf

Online sources