Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mefʿūlü fā’ilātü mefāʿīlü fāʿīlün

Gāhī bahār, gāh ḫazān söylerim saña
Aḥvāli ḳalb-i zāre nişān söylerim saña
Serpūşuñ at ki vech-i ḫamīrim ʿıyān ola
Tā ki ṭılsım-ı genc-i nihān söylerim saña
Toz ḳonmasun o dāmen-i ʿiŝmet-meʾābıña
Göñlüm ne ḥükm iderse hemān söylerim saña
Ṭur ḫāk-pāyi oldıcaġım var u yoġumı
Ḫoş bir zemīn bulur o zamān söylerim saña
Gül-bū-yı rāz gerçi degildir leb āşinā
Ben leb-be-leb, dehān-be-dehān saña
Bī-sekte naẓm āyet-i iʾcāz şīvesin
Ey serv-i nāz rūḥ-ı revān söylerim saña
Tafŝīl-i ḥüsn-i mücmel okur ter geçer yüzüñ
Rūḥu’l-beyān-ı āyet-i ān söylerim saña
Ey ʿaşḳ pīr ü gencler ile ülfetiñ seniñ
Gördüñ mi söyle böyle civān söylerim saña
Cūdī bülūġ-ı mertebe-i fażlıñda yoḳ sözüm
Siḥr-i āferīn belīġ-i beyān söylerim saña

In English

1. Now spring, now autumn I tell you; I tell you signs of the states of the weeping heart.

2. Throw off your head-covering so that the face of my inner self may be seen; then I shall tell you the talisman of the hidden treasure.

3. Let no dust settle on that skirt of yours, the refuge of chastity; whatever my heart decrees I shall tell you at once.

4. Wait, I shall become the dust of your feet; all I have and have not I shall tell you when I find a pleasant ground.

5. The rose scent of the secret is not, it is true, acquainted with lips; lip to lip, mouth to mouth I (shall tell it) to you.

6. O cypress of coquetry, O soul in motion; in verse without a stumble I tell you the manner of the miraculous verse.

7. Your face reads out in detail the beauty told in brief, and passes ever fresh; I tell you the spirit of the meaning of the verse of that inexpressible charm.

8. O love, you keep company with old and young alike; tell me, have you ever seen such a youth? I tell you.

9. Cûdî, I make no claim to reach the rank of your excellence; but with an eloquent, spell-casting speech I tell you.

Literary and Historical Commentary

In this ghazal the redif (refrain) "söylerim saña", I tell you, renews a promise in every couplet. The lover wants to speak, but always ties what he will say to a condition: if the veil is lifted he will tell the talisman of the hidden treasure, if a pleasant ground is found all he has and has not, if lips meet the rose scent of the secret. So the poem proceeds like a conversation in which what is to be said is always put off. The rhymes hazân, nişân, nihân, hemân, zamân, revân and civân set out the season, the place and the time of this delay.

In the ghazal speech and beauty are constantly likened to each other. Across the sixth and seventh couplets the beloved's face is read like a verse of scripture: "i'câz", the inimitable speech of the Qur'an; "mücmel" and "tafsîl", the brief and the detailed; "beyân", exposition. These are terms of the sciences of Qur'anic commentary and rhetoric, and the face becomes the detailed exposition of a beauty told in brief. The "ân" of the seventh couplet is the name divan poetry gives to the indescribable charm of beauty. In the hands of a teacher of literature these terms become a language that reads the beloved like a text.

The last couplet joins modesty and boast: he makes no claim to reach the beloved's excellence, but what he says he will say in a spellbinding, eloquent tongue. The thesis, for its part, lacks the word "söylerim" of the refrain in the second line of the fifth couplet. Both metre and refrain call for it; the text has nonetheless been left as the thesis has it.

Bibliography

  • Havva Tok Yıldız, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [1b-43a], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, pp. 24-25 (poem no. 12; manuscript fol. 5b-6a). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116853.pdf

Online sources