Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fāʿilātün fāʿilātün fāʿilātün fāʿilün

Biñ per-i pervāne-i şemʿ-i cemāl eyler beni
İçlerinde yoḳ faḳaṭ bir dāne māl eyler beni
İsterim ben ʿaşḳımı taṭbīḳe ḥüsn-i bī-miŝāl
Her güzel ḥüsni içün ʿaşḳa miŝāl eyler beni
Vāḳıf-ı cānım nuḳūş-ı ẓāhiriñ ümmīsiyim
Sanma kim tebler esīr ḫaṭ u ḫāl eyler beni
Ġālibā ceẕb itdigi canlarladır cemʿiyyeti
Ceẕb ider cānān o cānlardan ḫayāl eyler beni
Ḥüsnüne taʿẓīm içün gördükde ḳaddüm dāl olur
Mihr-i nāzım ḳarşıma çıḳsa hilāl eyler beni
Eylesem ikmāl bir noḳṣānı biñ noḳṣān ṭoġar
Hep bu noḳṣanlar pezīrā-yı kemāl eyler beni
Cūdiyā māṭlūbımı yazmaz kitāb-ı mümkināt
Himmetim beyhūde cūyā-yı muḥāl eyler beni

In English

1. With a thousand wings the moth of the candle of beauty makes me (its moth); but among them there is not one that makes me its own.

2. I want to fit my love to a peerless beauty; every beauty makes me an example of love for its own beauty.

3. I know the secret of the soul and am unlettered in outward patterns; do not think that down and mole make me captive.

4. It seems (the beloved) is a company of the souls it draws; the beloved draws those souls and makes me a fancy (the couplet is not entirely clear).

5. When I see her, my stature bends into the letter dâl in reverence for her beauty; should the sun of coquetry appear before me, it makes me a crescent.

6. If I complete one lack, a thousand lacks are born; all these lacks make me ready to receive perfection.

7. Cûdî, the book of the possible does not write the one I seek; my resolve makes me, in vain, a seeker of the impossible.

Literary and Historical Commentary

The lover does not seek his love in a single beauty; what he seeks is an ideal of beauty without equal. The first two couplets build a paradox: all the beauties make the poet an example of love for themselves, but none can possess him, for the poet wishes to fit his love to "a beauty without equal". In the third couplet the poet says he is "ümmî", unlettered, in the patterns of outward appearance: down and mole, the familiar marks of beauty in divan poetry, cannot make him captive.

The fifth couplet joins images of letter and sky: before the beloved's beauty the poet's stature bends like the Arabic letter "dâl"; before the sun of coquetry it turns into a crescent. The sixth couplet is the centre of the ghazal's thought: completing one lack gives birth to a thousand new lacks, and these lacks prepare man for perfection. This is a Sufi thought that says maturing is an endless journey. The closing couplet shows the end of the same journey: the one sought is not written in the book of the possible; the poet's resolve makes him a seeker of the impossible.

Bibliography

  • Zeynep Adıyahşi, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [43b-87b], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, p. 111 (poem no. 262; manuscript fol. 78a). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116831.pdf

Online sources