Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Metre: Mefāʿilün feʿilātün mefāʿilün feʿilün
Gözüm açar baḳarım gördigim ẓülāl-i ḫayāl
Gözüm ḳapar bulurum ẕihni bir mecāl-i ḫayāl
Cihānı bilmedigim bir lisān gibi oḳurum
Birer birer geçer elfāẓa bī-māʾil-i ḫayāl
Cihān-ı ādemi bu hāy u hūyı dem-be-demi
Görür gözüm birer efsāne bir miŝāl-i ḫayāl
Bu ḥüsn ü ḳubḥ umūrı bu muḫtelif ṣūri
Yazar ṣaḥīfe-i kevn ü fesāde nāl-i ḫayāl
Gelir ẓuhūra ġarāʾib-nümā temāşālar
Felek o perdeki oynar hemān ḫayāl-i ḫayāl
Bu ṣamt-ı muṭlaḳ ile her gelen ne ḫoş ḳonuşur
Alır cevāb-ı ḫayāl eyleyüp suʾāl-i ḫayāl
Çocukluġumda, şebābımda yaʿnī cehlimde
Birer ḥaḳīḳat idi çeşmime cemāl-i ḫayāl
Bu kevn cemāl-i ḥaḳīḳat ḥicāb-dār-ı ḫayāl
Anıñ ḫayāli ider ḳalbi mest-māl-i ḫayāl
Bu kevn cemāl-i ḥaḳīḳat görünmiyor gözüme
Yetiş ne demdesiñ ey ḫoş-dem viṣāl-i ḫayāl
Baña ḥaḳāyıḳ-ı aḥvāle iṭṭilāʿ, ḥarām
Sen oḳşa ẕihnimi ey leẕẕet-i ḥelāl-i ḫayāl
Ḥużūr-ı selb olınur gözleri açık gezeniñ
Ḥased o ġāfile kim nāʾim-i ḥicāl-i ḫayāl
Ḥayāt o baḥr-ı ḫayālātdır ki peyveste
İçinde oynatır ervāḥı, şāh-bāl-ı ḫayāl
Bu baḥre düşdigim andan beri şināh iderim
Görünmiyor gözüme sāḥil-i maḥāll-i ḫayāl
Ḫayāl içinde ḫayāl oldıġım ŝübūta yeter
Günüm geçer olur encām-ı pāyimāl-i ḫayāl
Mineʾl-ezel bu geliştir ileʾl-ebed bu gidiş
Döner ṭurur arada mevc-i māh u sāl-i ḫayāl
Ẓalām içinde aḳar ṭatlı ṭatlı ʿayn-ı ḫayāt
Miŝāl-i ḫıẓr-ı cihān ṭālib-i zülāl-i ḫayāl
Ḫayāliñ eyleyemem ḫalḳa ḫidmetin inkār
Tekemmülāt-ı beşer zāde-i kemāl-i ḫayāl
Ḫayāl, sofrasını her dü-ʿāleme döşemiş
Virir nüfūsa meẕāḳınca bir nevāl-i ḫayāl
Ġurūr-ı nevʿ-i-beşer oḳşanır çocuḳ gibidir
İder ṭabīʿat-ı ṭıflānesi delāl-i ḫayāl
Ḥayāt o yol ki çöker çehreye ġubār-ı fütūr
Faḳaṭ siler anı her laḥẓa dest-māl-i ḫayāl
İder müdāhene insānıñ iç yüzi ṭışına
Şımartır ol çocuġı lālāsı Bilāl-i ḫayāl
Görür misüñ ne ḳadar dik ṭurur ḳażā-yı beşer
Ṭurur ya çünki odur ẕirve-i cibāl-i ḫayāl
Ḳażā, o ḳāf-ı ḫayālatıdır ki ʿanḳālar
Hümālar anda uçar ṣayd ider ġazāl-i ḫayāl
Neler yumurṭladı fol tutdıġı ḳaẓlarda
Ne maġziler yedi efrāḫ-ı iḫtilāl-i ḫayāl
Eger olunsa terāzū-yı ḥaḳla sencīde
Cibāl-i ḳāfdane eşḳal gelir vebāl-i ḫayāl
Bütün merāsim-i teşrīf ü iḥtişām u ġurūr
Nişān-ı faḫr u şeref, rütbe-i ricāl-i ḫayāl
Bu cüst-ü-cū bu tek-ā-pū bu ārzū bu emel
Münāfesāt u mübāhāt, ḳıl ü ḳāl-i ḫayāl
Bu dāʿiyāt-ı tefevvuḳ, bu iddiʾā-yı nüfūẕ
Bütün hevācis-i nefsine hep ḫayāl-i ḫayāl
Viḫāmi hāciseden böyle miʿdesi bulanır
Fecīʿalar ṭoġurur ḳanlı ḳanlı zāl-i ḫayāl
Belā-yı nāʾire-i harbi eyleyen īḳād
Dimāġ-ı ehl-i ḫayāl üzre eşġāl-i ḫayāl
Silāḥ-ı ʿaḳl ile müstaḥkem ü müsellaḥ iken
Ḥakīmi, ḥākimi maġlūb-ı iḥtīyāl-i ḫayāl
Ḥuṣūl-i feyż ṣalāḥ-ı ʿumūma beñzer kim
Netīce yāb olamaz ṣulḥ ile cidāl-i ḫayāl
Bu fırḳa fırḳa teferruḳ bu dürlü dürlü ṭuruḳ
Ceẕūʿ-ı naḫl-i hevā şuʿbe-i nihāl-i ḫayāl
Olur ḥarāret-i enfüsle kesb idüp keremi
Semūm-ı tīh-i belā rīḥ-i iʿtidāl-i ḫayāl
Selef bıraḳsa elinden ḫalef ḳapar derḥāl
Düşer mi hīç yire şu ferīḳ sifāl-i ḫayāl
(Rūşen ḫayāl degil ḫakī, busun sefāl-i ḫayāl)
Eyādi-i beşerī ṣanki muttaṣıl ḳanavāt
Gelir geçer ṭuramaz anda naḳd u māl-i ḫayāl
Ṭarīḳ-i ḥaḳḳa nasıl ihtidā ider bu nüfūs
Öñinde bedraḳa-i rāh iken żalāl-i ḫayāl
Şuḫūṣ kendi ḫayālātınıñ ʿalīli iken
İder ʿumūm aña telḳīḥ-i iʿtilāl-i ḫayāl
Ḥaḳīḳat ʿālemine bir adımcıġaz atamaz
ʿUḳūlı öyle ḳavī baġlamış ʿuḳāl-ı ḫayāl
Ṭulūʿ-ı mihr-i ḥaḳīḳat ṣabāḥ-ı maḥşerdir
Ḥayāt-ı fāniye başdan başa leyāl-i ḫayāl
Ebaʾl-ḥaḳīḳatü veʾl-ḥaḳḳu ʿan taʿalluḳ-u ʿuḳl
Ve ṣadde ʿan denesi’l-vehmi veʾt-tiṣāli ḫayāl
In English
1. I open my eyes and look: what I see are the shadows of imagination; I close my eyes and find the mind a field of imagination.
2. I read the world like a language I do not know; the meaningless words of imagination pass one by one into speech.
3. My eye sees the human world, this hubbub that goes on moment by moment, as so many tales, so many examples of imagination.
4. These affairs of beauty and ugliness, these forms of every kind, the pen of imagination writes on the page of coming-to-be and passing away.
5. Spectacles full of strangeness come into view; on that screen the sphere plays nothing but the imagination of imagination.
6. How pleasantly everyone who comes converses with this absolute silence; asking the question of imagination, he receives the answer of imagination.
7. In my childhood and youth, that is, in my ignorance, the beauty of imagination was to my eye so many truths.
8. This being is imagination holding a veil before the beauty of truth; its imagining fills the heart with the intoxication of imagination.
9. In this being the beauty of truth does not appear to my eye; O sweet-breathed union of imagination, come quickly, where are you?
10. Knowing the truths of states is forbidden to me; O lawful delight of imagination, caress my mind.
11. He who goes about with open eyes is robbed of his peace; that heedless one asleep in the bridal chamber of imagination is envied.
12. Life is such a sea of imaginings that the great wing of imagination ceaselessly sets spirits dancing within it.
13. Since the moment I fell into this sea I have been swimming; the shore of the lands of imagination does not appear to my eye.
14. It is proof enough that I am an imagining within imagination: my days pass, and in the end I am trampled under imagination's feet.
15. From eternity past this coming, to eternity to come this going; in between the wave of imagination's months and years turns on and on.
16. In the darkness the spring of life flows sweetly; like Khidr, the world seeks the clear water of imagination.
17. I cannot deny imagination's service to mankind; all the advances of humanity are born of the perfection of imagination.
18. Imagination has spread its table in both worlds; to each soul it gives a morsel of imagination to suit its taste.
19. The pride of the human race is like a child being petted; that childish nature plays the coquette of imagination.
20. Life is a road where the dust of weariness settles on the face; but the handkerchief of imagination wipes it away every moment.
21. Man's inner face flatters his outer; that child is spoiled by his tutor, imagination.
22. Do you see how erect the human head stands? Of course it does, for it is the summit of the mountains of imagination.
23. The head is the Mount Qâf of imaginings, where the anka and the huma fly and hunt the gazelle of imagination.
24. What (imagination) has laid in the geese it brooded; what brains the chicks of imagination's disorder have devoured. (The couplet is not entirely clear.)
25. If it were weighed on God's scales, the sin of imagination would weigh heavier than the mountains of Qâf.
26. All the ceremonies of protocol, pomp and pride; the badges of glory and honour, the ranks, all belong to the men of imagination.
27. This seeking, this bustle, this desire, this ambition; rivalries and boasts are all the gossip of imagination.
28. These claims to superiority, this pretension to influence, all the whisperings of the self are the imagination of imagination.
29. From the weight of whispering doubt the stomach is thus upset; the old hag of imagination gives birth to bloody, bloody tragedies.
30. What kindles the calamity of the fire of war is the working of imagination on the brains of the people of imagination.
31. Though fortified and armed with the weapon of reason, both the sage and the ruler are defeated by imagination's trickery.
32. Attaining bounty is like the general peace; the strife of imagination cannot be brought to an end by peace. (The couplet is not entirely clear.)
33. This splitting into sects, these roads of every kind, are the trunks of the palm of desire, the branches of the sapling of imagination.
34. The temperate wind of imagination, heated by the warmth of the selves, becomes the poison wind of the desert of calamity.
35. When the one before lets it go, the one after snatches it at once; does this bowl of imagination ever fall to the ground? (The third line given in brackets in the thesis must be an alternative wording; its reading is not certain.)
36. Human hands are like canals joined to one another; the money and goods of imagination come and pass through them, never stopping.
37. How shall these souls find God's road, while the error of imagination goes before them as guide?
38. While people are sick with their own imaginings, everyone inoculates them with the disease of imagination.
39. The fetter of imagination has bound minds so tightly that they cannot take even a tiny step into the world of truth.
40. The rising of the sun of truth is the morning of the Resurrection; this passing life is from end to end the nights of imagination.
41. (Arabic) Truth and God have refused the grasp of minds, and kept far from the defilement of fancy and the touch of imagination.
Literary and Historical Commentary
The Shadow Screen
This long poem of forty-one couplets turns into an essay in thought by repeating the word "hayâl" (imagination) at the end of every couplet. Though of kaside length, it praises no person; its subject is the human mind itself. The first couplets describe life as a scene of imagination: what is seen when the eyes are opened is the shadow of imagination, when they close the mind becomes imagination's field, and the world is read like an unknown language. The words of the fifth couplet, "on that screen the sphere plays the imagination of imagination", recall the screen of hayal-i zıll, the old name of the Karagöz shadow play; the world is a shadow play performed behind the screen.
A Power with Two Faces
The poem's worth lies in its not passing a single judgement on imagination. In the seventeenth couplet the poet says he cannot deny imagination's service to mankind, that all the advances of humanity are born of the perfection of imagination; in the eighteenth imagination is a table spread in both worlds, and in the sixteenth the spring of life flowing in the dark. But the same imagination is the source of ceremonies of protocol, of badges and ranks; claims to superiority, pretensions to influence and in the end the fire of war are also its work. The thirtieth couplet calls war a work that begins in the brains of the people of imagination. The couplets that count the love of rank and decoration as imagination's work read like a criticism written from within an age of officialdom.
The "telkîh" of the thirty-eighth couplet means inoculation, a term that spread in medicine at the end of the nineteenth century; while people are sick with their own imaginings, they inoculate one another with the disease of imagination. The fortieth couplet ties the subject to the hereafter: the sun of truth will rise on the morning of the Resurrection, and this passing life is from end to end the nights of imagination. The last couplet is in Arabic and, by saying that God is far from the grasp of minds and from the defilement of fancy and imagination, places the whole realm of imagination outside divine truth. In the twenty-second and twenty-third couplets the thesis reading "ḳażā" should be understood from the context as "ḳafā", the head; the human head is the Mount Qâf of imaginings.
Bibliography
- Havva Tok Yıldız, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [1b-43a], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, pp. 51-54 (poem no. 42; manuscript fol. 15b-16b). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116853.pdf
Online sources
