Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Zindeye dünyada her şeyden ziyade can leziz
Canına can kattığı içün cana da canan leziz.
Lezzeti idrak ile idraki lezzettir hayat
Lezzeti hissi hayat üstünde de Irfan leziz.
Hakku vicdan aklu can ol bahirden bir katradır
Katradan belli nasıl ol bahri bi payan leziz.
Can ki var elbette canan var mukabil bir zuhur
Zevki ruyet olmasa olmaz güneş elvan leziz.
Hakidan bir küldür ateşten tahassul eylemiş
Doğmuş andan tuzlu su tuzdan çıkan baran leziz.
İmtizaç etmiş hava olmuş, su olmuş muhlikat
Semlerin zımmında gizli rahmeti Rahman leziz.
Gün güler, encum güler, güller, çiçekler hep güler
Çehre'i canan kadar hiç var mı bir handan leziz.
Yarı görsem CUDİ ya canu cihan gözden çıkar
Lezzeti didarı veş hiç görmedim bir an leziz.

In English

1. To the living, the soul is sweeter than anything in the world; because the beloved adds soul to his soul, the beloved too is sweet to the soul.

2. Life is perceiving sweetness and tasting perception; above the felt sweetness of life, knowledge of God is sweet as well.

3. Right and conscience, reason and soul are a drop of that sea; from the drop it is plain how sweet that boundless sea is.

4. Since there is a soul, there is surely a beloved as an appearance answering it; without the delight of seeing, the colours of the sun would not be sweet.

5. The earth is an ash that came into being from fire; from it salt water was born, and the rain that rises from the salt is sweet (the couplet is not entirely clear).

6. Deadly things combined and became air, became water; hidden within the poisons, the mercy of the Merciful is sweet (the couplet is not entirely clear).

7. The sun smiles, the stars smile, the roses and flowers all smile; is there anything that smiles as sweetly as the beloved's face?

8. Cûdî, if I see my beloved, soul and world fall from my sight; I have never seen a moment as sweet as the delight of beholding a face.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Life is a process of tasting and perceiving: that is the definition given by the ghazal with the refrain "leziz", sweet. The soul, says the first couplet, is sweeter than anything in the world; the beloved too is sweet, because he adds soul to the soul. The second couplet widens the definition: life is perceiving sweetness and tasting perception; above the taste of the senses there is the taste of "irfân", the knowledge of God. The third couplet ties in with the idea of unity: right, conscience, reason and soul are each a drop of a boundless sea.

The fifth and sixth couplets are the most unexpected part of the ghazal and close to the scientific images of the divan. It is said that the earth is an ash formed from fire, that from it were born the salt seas and from the sea the sweet rain; in the sixth couplet it is told that "deadly" things combined to become air and water, and that the mercy of the Merciful is hidden within poisons. This may be an allusion to the knowledge of nineteenth century chemistry that water is made of two gases; the simplified text in the thesis is not enough to settle this reading. The ghazal closes with a love couplet, comparing the smile of the sun, the stars and the flowers with the smile of the beloved's face.

Bibliography

  • Havva Tok Yıldız, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [1b-43a], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, pp. 180, 187-188 (Appendix, poem no. 10). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116853.pdf

Online sources