Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Metre: Fāʿilātün fāʿilātün fāʿilātün fāʿilün
ʿĀşıḳ-ı bī-raḥm içün lāyıḳ mı cānān aġlasın
Derdiñ istiġnāsına yansın da dermān aġlasın
Ey güzel gözlüm ne lāyıḳdır bu çeşmān aġlasın
Hiç olur mı nāzenīnim nāz nīnān aġlasın
Nergis-i maḥmūrıñı giryān iden ḳan aġlasın
Aġladan bir an seni ʿālemde her an aġlasın
In English
1. Is it fitting that the beloved should weep for a merciless lover? Let the remedy burn at the indifference of pain and weep. O my lovely-eyed one, how fitting is it that these eyes should weep? Can it ever be, my delicate one, that (eyes) in coy slumber should weep? Let whoever makes your languid narcissus eye weep, weep blood; let whoever makes you weep for a moment weep every moment in the world.
Literary and Historical Commentary
Read together with its title, these six lines tell a small story: a lovely-eyed girl who weeps because the one she loves does not love her. "Güfte" means words written to be set to music; the title shows that the poem was thought of as a song lyric. In divan poetry the one who weeps is almost always the lover; here, however, the one weeping is the girl in the place of the beloved, and the poet looks on her tears as an injustice.
All six lines carry the refrain "ağlasın", let ... weep, but each time the repetition asks for another subject to weep. The beloved should not weep for a merciless lover; it is the remedy that should burn and weep, whoever makes those lovely eyes weep should weep blood, whoever makes her weep for a moment should weep every moment. This reversal is a tender consolation that turns into a curse. "Nergis-i mahmûr", the languid narcissus, is the well-known name in divan poetry for the beloved's drowsy-looking eye; here that eye is heavy not with sleep but with tears.
Bibliography
- Havva Tok Yıldız, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [1b-43a], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, p. 125 (poem no. 173; manuscript fol. ). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116853.pdf
Online sources
