Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Metre: Mefāʿilün feʿilātün mefāʿilün feʿilün
Bu yerde ṣanma ki ben iʿtilā-yı cāh iderim
ʿUlüvv-i cāh uġurunda süḳūṭ-ı çāh iderim
Ṭarīḳ-i ʿilme gidersem çıḳar cehālete yol
Yaḳīnen anladıġım şeyde iştibāh iderim
Bu yerde bir melek olsam da ḥāṣılı maʿṣūm
Per-i nezāheti ālūde-i günāh iderim
Bir incizāb-ı digerdir beni ʿalāya çeken
O mıḳnaṭısa bu meczūb rūhı kāh iderim
Ben iʿtilā görürüm mevkib-i peyamberde
Peyinde kendimi bir aʿcez-i sipāh iderim
Zemīne sāḳıṭ olan necm-i ŝāḳıb-ı rūḥum
İdince yād-ı vaṭan terk-i ḫvāb-gāh iderim
Bün-i sütūn-ı taḥayyürde benim tekye-künān
Benān be-rīş-i semāvāta itticāh iderim
Alınca ḫvāb şu bir ḳabża ḫāk-ı maġrūrı
Nücūmı mükḥule-i çeşm-i intibāh iderim
Ġubār-ı kevn ü mekānı silüp dü çeşmimden
Şeb-i mükevkebe çeşmānı mihr ü māh iderim
Ben ol gice göremem ẓulmeti tenevvürden
Fürūġ-ı fikreti peyvend-i ṣubḥ-gāh iderim
Gülen güneş, açılan nūr-ı nevbahārı bıraḳ
Ben anları bu tezāvīre zūr-güvāh iderim
Cihāna perde-i ġaflet çeken żiyā-yı nehār
Saña sefīd ise ben ruʾyet-i siyāh iderim
Nehār-ı tīre ṣaḥāʾif idince ṭayy-ı sicil
Şebiñ bedāyiʿ-i āŝārına nigāh iderim
Ḳarīre-sāz-ı ʿuyūn-ı ulü'n-nühādır şeb
Niḳāṭ-ı beyżi ḫayālimde hep cibāh iderim
O cebheler ki ṭoġar āsumān-ı esrāra
Gözümle būs iderim nuṭḳ-ı bī-şifāh iderim
Nücūmı Leyle-i hicrānda eşke beñzedirim
Nigāhı giryeden ālūde-i miyāh iderim
Miṣāl-i güm-reh-i beydā ẓalām-ı ḥayretde
Şitāb-ı ḳāfile-i mevkib-i ilāh iderim
Sevābiḥ-i yem-i sübbūḥ olan kevākib-i leyl
Öñümde meşʿale çekdikçe ʿazm-i rāh iderim
Bu imtidād-ı siyeh-gūn-ı ẓıllı ḳaṭʿ idemem
Egerçi ḫaṭvede bir ṭayy-i lā-tenāh iderim
Per-i nigāha tüvān-sūz olunca berḳ-i celāl
Revān-ı pākımı refref-süvār-ı āh iderim
Ḳalınca deşt-i taḥayyürde bī-mecāl ü ġarīb
Ḥarīm-i ḳalbe "daḫīlek" diyüp penāh iderim
Ḥabāb olur pey-i ʿazmümde rīze rīze nücūm
Yem-i ʿamīḳ-i süveydāda kim şināh iderim
O rütbe ġarḳa-i deryā-yı fikr olur giderim
Ki kendi hestī-i hīçimden intizāh iderim
Feżā meżāyı geçüp bī-vücūd noḳṭa gibi
Muḥīṭ-i hīçe dili merkez-i tebāh iderim
Lehīb-i lemʿa-i bī-şemʿ-veş döner ṭururum
Serāb-ı nūşi-i feyfā-yı ittilāh iderim
Bir ihtizāz-ı ʿacībü't-ṭanīne tār olurum
Bir añlaşılmayacaḳ neşʾe iktināh iderim
Bütün ʿavālimiñ āhengi cemʿ olup bende
Semāʿ-i naġme-i lā-naʿbudu sivāh iderim
In English
1. Do not think that here I am after loftiness of rank; for the sake of loftiness of rank I choose a fall into the well.
2. If I go the way of knowledge, the road leads out to ignorance; in what I have understood with certainty I fall into doubt.
3. Even were I an angel here, in short sinless, I would stain the wing of my purity with sin.
4. It is another attraction that draws me to the heights; I make this enraptured spirit a wisp of straw to that magnet (amber).
5. I see loftiness in the procession of the Prophet; behind him I make myself the most helpless of soldiers.
6. My spirit is a piercing star fallen to the earth; when it remembers its homeland I leave my bed.
7. Leaning at the foot of the pillar of bewilderment, fingers in my beard, I turn towards the heavens (the couplet is not entirely clear).
8. When sleep takes this handful of proud dust, I make the stars the kohl of the wakeful eye.
9. Wiping the dust of being and place from my two eyes, I make the eyes of the starry night sun and moon (the line is not entirely clear).
10. That night I cannot see darkness for the brightness; I join the radiance of thought to the hour of dawn.
11. Leave the laughing sun, the opening light of new spring; I count them false witnesses of these deceptions.
12. The light of day that draws a veil of heedlessness over the world, if it is white to you, I see it black.
13. When the dark day rolls up its pages like a scroll, I gaze on the wondrous works of the night.
14. Night delights the eyes of the people of understanding; in my fancy I take the white points (the stars) all for foreheads.
15. Those foreheads that rise in the heaven of secrets I kiss with my eye; I speak a speech without lips.
16. I liken the stars to tears in the night of separation; I make my gaze wet with weeping.
17. Like one lost in the desert in the darkness of bewilderment, I hurry to reach the caravan of God's procession.
18. As the stars of the night, swimmers in the sea of the All-Glorified, hold torches before me, I set out on the road.
19. I cannot cross this black extension of shadow, though with one step I fold up an endless way.
20. When the lightning of majesty burns the wing of the gaze, I set my pure soul to ride the Refref of a sigh.
21. When I am left powerless and a stranger in the desert of bewilderment, I say "I seek your protection" and take refuge in the sanctuary of the heart.
22. As I swim in the deep sea that is the heart's black core, the stars become bubbles in pieces in the wake of my resolve.
23. I sink so far into the sea of thought that I am cleansed of my own being and nothingness.
24. Passing space and its passages like a point without being, I make the heart the ruined centre of the circle of nothingness (the line is not entirely clear).
25. Like the flame of a gleam without a candle I keep turning; (the second line is not entirely clear) ...
26. I become the string of a strangely sounding vibration; I fathom an elation that cannot be understood.
27. The harmony of all the worlds gathered in me, I perform the semâ of the melody "we worship none but Him".
Literary and Historical Commentary
A night's gazing becomes a spiritual ascension in this kaside, as its title says: "Sırru'l-urûc ilâ surûci'l-burûc", the secret of the ascent to the lamps of the constellations. The couplets, bound by the refrain "-âh iderim", tell the poet's own inner journey in the first person. The first couplets are a declaration of humility: with the play between the words "câh", rank, and "çâh", well, the poet says that he does not seek loftiness of rank; even the way of knowledge leads him out to ignorance, and certainty to doubt. What draws him upwards is an attraction that does not come from his own effort, as amber draws straw.
From the sixth couplet on, the night scenes begin. The spirit is a star fallen to earth, and when it remembers its homeland it leaves sleep; the stars become the kohl of the wakeful eye. In the eleventh and twelfth couplets values are exchanged between day and night: the daylight that draws a veil of heedlessness over the world is in truth darkness, and it is night that makes real seeing possible. The thirteenth couplet alludes to the verse of the sura al-Anbiyâ' saying that the heavens will be rolled up "like the rolling up of a scroll of writings" (21:104).
The "Refref" of the twentieth couplet is one of the mounts the Prophet rode on the night of the ascension; by setting his pure soul to ride the Refref of a sigh, the poet builds his own small ascension. In the last couplets the journey arrives at an experience of nothingness and an image of music: the poet becomes the vibration of a strangely sounding string and, gathering the harmony of all the worlds in himself, whirls in the semâ to the melody "we worship none but Him". Carrying the same love of the sky as the divan's comet müseddes, the kaside joins the Sufi language of the spiritual journey with the sky-gazing of a late nineteenth century reader. In the seventh, ninth, twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth couplets a few words remain obscure; the brackets in the translation mark these places.
Bibliography
- Zeynep Adıyahşi, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [43b-87b], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, pp. 47-49 (poem no. 204; manuscript fol. 54b-55a-55b). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116831.pdf
Online sources
