Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mefāʿilün feʿilātün mefāʿilün feʿilün

Açınca çeşmimi gördüm muḥīṭimi şaşdım
ʿAceb nedir bu diye keşfe ḫayli uġraşdım
Nigāh-ı ḥayretimi kendime idüp tevcīh
Ya ben neyim diye ʿaḳlımla ḥasb-i ḥāllaşdım
ʿAceb bu silsile-i gūne ben naṣıl girdim
Naṣıl bu ḥayyizi buldum naṣıl kararlaşdım
Ezel didikleri demden şu ḥāl-i ḥāżıra dek
Deñiz mi ṭāġ mı bayır mı ne varṭalar aşdım
Ne nām var idi ne bir nişān vücūdumdan
Ne Zeydiñ oġlı ne ʿAmrda baba ne ḳardaşdım
Nefḫ-i aḳdes idim ḫāḳ-ı ādeme ṭoḳunup
Ḥayāt-ı maḥż olaraḳ bu teʿayyüne ṭaşdım
Ḳanāt-ı nevʿide aṣl üzre eyledim cereyān
Ne bir tenāsüḫe düşdüm ne fesḫe yaḳlaşdım

In English

1. When I opened my eyes I saw my surroundings and was amazed; I struggled hard to discover, "What can this be?"

2. Turning my gaze of wonder upon myself, I poured out my heart to my reason: "And what am I?"

3. How did I enter this chain of kinds? How did I find this place, how did I settle?

4. From the moment they call pre-eternity to this present state, sea or mountain or slope, what abysses I have crossed!

5. Of my being there was neither name nor trace; I was neither Zeyd's son nor father or brother to 'Amr.

6. I was the most holy breath; touching the clay of Adam, as pure life I overflowed into this individuation.

7. I flowed in the canal of my kind according to my origin; I neither fell into transmigration nor came near metamorphosis.

Literary and Historical Commentary

The wonder of the ghazal "İstiğrâb" turns, in this ghazal titled "Taaccüb", astonishment, upon the poet himself. The first two couplets are a scene of awakening and self-questioning: the eye opens, the surroundings are seen, then the gaze turns upon itself and the question "And what am I?" is asked. The third and fourth couplets spread this question over the history of being: how did I enter this chain of kinds, which seas, mountains and abysses have I crossed from pre-eternity until today?

The fifth couplet carries a joke from madrasa grammar: in the Arabic grammar books the names "Zeyd" and "'Amr" are always used in example sentences. The poet says that before he existed he was neither Zeyd's son nor 'Amr's father or brother, that is, not even the subject of an example sentence. The sixth couplet rests on the Qur'anic verse "I breathed into him of My spirit" (al-Hijr 15:29): man is the overflowing of a holy breath that touched the clay of Adam. The last couplet ties in with the divan's Persian satire on transmigration: the poet has flowed in the canal of his kind according to his origin; he has neither fallen into the transmigration of souls nor turned into another being. This wonder at the origin of being is balanced by an answer given by faith.

Bibliography

  • Zeynep Adıyahşi, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [43b-87b], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, p. 118 (poem no. 273; manuscript fol. 80b). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116831.pdf

Online sources