Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Metre: Mefāʿīlün mefāʿīlün mefāʿīlün mefāʿīlün
Aña ḥikmet didim kim neşʾe-i uḫrāyı parlatmaz
Ḫazānīlerdir anlar aġlasun, gülsün rebīʿīler
Rebīʿīler ki her-dem tāze āyāt-ı ilāhīdir
Meʿānīsin beyān eyler bütün ṣunʿ-i bedīʿīler
In English
1. Did I call wisdom that which does not brighten the joy of the hereafter? They are the people of autumn, let them weep; let the people of spring laugh. (The first line is not entirely clear.)
2. The people of spring, who are ever-fresh divine signs; all wondrous creations make their meanings plain.
Literary and Historical Commentary
People are divided into two by the names of two seasons: "hazânîler", the people of autumn, and "rebîîler", the people of spring. Let the people of autumn weep and the people of spring laugh; the one looks at the world with an eye of fading and loss, the other with an eye of freshness and renewal. The first line resists the thesis reading; as far as can be understood, the poet does not count as wisdom a knowledge that does not brighten the joy of the hereafter.
The praise goes to the people of spring: they are ever-fresh divine signs, and all wondrous creations make their meaning plain. The thought of a world renewed at every moment voiced in the divan's quatrain "Allâh tecellîsini tekrâr itmez" turns here into a human type: whoever sees newness and divine signs in the world is a person of spring. Read together with the divan's poems of old age and autumn, this kıta shows that beside sorrow the poet also defended joy as a way of seeing.
Bibliography
- Havva Tok Yıldız, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [1b-43a], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, p. 127 (poem no. 178; manuscript fol. ). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116853.pdf
Online sources
