Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mefʿūlü mefāʿīlü mefāʿīlü feʿūlün

Envār-ı ezel ḳalbime itdikçe tehācüm
Bir şems olur eṭrāfıma neşr eylerim encüm
Ḥāmil olamaz kevkebemi ṭārem-i çārüm
Taḥdīd idemez dāʾiremi ḳubbe-i pencüm
Bir merkez-i feyyāż, ḳarār-gāh-ı ḳadīmim
Āyīne ṭutar pertevime on iki burcum
Bir devḥayım envār-ı bahārım şu kevākib
Ḫurşīd-i zerīn portaḳalım, māh-ı turuncum
Bir nāṭıḳadan münşaʿib olmuş iken insān
Cūdī ne içün itmedeler böyle tecemcüm

In English

1. As the lights of pre-eternity throng into my heart, I become a sun and scatter stars around me.

2. The fourth vault of heaven cannot bear my star; the fifth dome cannot bound my circle.

3. I am an overflowing centre, an ancient seat; my twelve constellations hold a mirror to my radiance.

4. I am a tree, and these stars are my spring blossoms; the golden sun is my orange, the moon my bitter orange.

5. While mankind has branched from a single rational soul, Cûdî, why do they thus take on (separate) bodies? (the line is not entirely clear)

Literary and Historical Commentary

The ecstatic self sees itself as a cosmic centre; the ghazal that bears the title "Şatahât" for the second time in the divan tells of this vision. In the first couplet, as the lights of pre-eternity throng into the heart, the poet becomes a sun and scatters stars around him. The second couplet uses the old astronomy's order of the spheres: the fourth heaven, where the sun is, cannot bear his star; the fifth dome cannot bound his circle. In the third the twelve constellations hold a mirror to his light.

The fourth couplet likens this cosmic self to a tree in spring and carries the poem's most endearing image: the stars are the tree's spring blossoms, the golden sun its orange, and the moon its bitter orange. The last couplet turns from the language of ecstasy to a thought: mankind has branched from a single "nâtıka", rational soul; why then does it put on such separate bodies? This question, as in the earlier "Şatahât" ghazal, shows that the idea of unity lies behind the language of shath. The last word of the last line could not be fully resolved, so the question has been translated with caution.

Bibliography

  • Zeynep Adıyahşi, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [43b-87b], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, p. 123 (poem no. 278; manuscript fol. 82a). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116831.pdf

Online sources