Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Şimdiden gerü ey gonca bana cevrini az et
Destur sana erbabını bul da ana naz et.
Beyhude bana arzı vefa etme alan yok
Canın kimi isterse konuş mahremi naz et.
Biz başımıza hırka çeküp rağbeti kestik
İster köçek ol oyna da dil nağmeni saz et.
Dil beytini zalim nice bir zulm ile yıktın
Haccac gibi zulmun mu dedi hedmi hicaz et.
Bu seyyienin afvine ruhsat verilür mü
Gel medreseye CUDİ ye ifayı cevvaz et.

In English

1. From now on, O rosebud, lessen your cruelty to me; you have leave, find those who know your worth and be coy with them.

2. Do not offer me faithfulness in vain, there is no taker; speak with whomever your heart desires and make him the confidant of your coquetry.

3. We have drawn the dervish cloak over our heads and cut off desire; be a dancer if you like, dance and tune the melody of your heart.

4. Tyrant, you have torn down the house of the heart with such cruelty; did your cruelty, like Hajjâj, tell you "demolish the Hijaz"?

5. Is leave given to pardon this wrong? Come to the madrasa and give Cûdî the ruling of permission.

Literary and Historical Commentary

This ghazal, the last poem of the Appendix of the thesis, is like a playful farewell letter from a lover who has given up love to his beloved. The poet tells the beloved, whom he addresses as "rosebud", to lessen her cruelty, to be coy with those who appreciate it, and to take her offer of faithfulness to someone else. The third couplet tells this renunciation through an image of the dervish: the poet has drawn the cloak over his head and cut off desire for the world; the beloved, if she likes, may dance like a köçek and play the melody of her heart.

The fourth couplet plays on the two senses of the word "beyt": "dil beyti", the house of the heart, also recalls "the House", the name of the Kaaba. The beloved's tearing down of the house of the heart is likened to the Umayyad governor Hajjâj having the Kaaba battered with catapults in the siege of Mecca; Hajjâj was named with the same event in the divan's Karbala elegy too. The closing couplet carries the joke into the madrasa: a dispensation is needed for the pardon of this wrong; the beloved should come to the madrasa and obtain a "cevaz", a ruling of permission, from Cûdî. A teacher and madrasa-trained poet joking with the terms of law is a habit seen in other ghazals of the divan as well.

Bibliography

  • Havva Tok Yıldız, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [1b-43a], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, pp. 180, 189 (Appendix, poem no. 14). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116853.pdf

Online sources