Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mefʿūlü fāʿilātü mefāʿīlü fāʿilün

Sezā-yı müʾlifīn-i kirām atdıñız beni
Bir mevḳiʿ-i tereddüde bir cāy-ı müşkile
Bir ʿālem-i ḫayāle virir kilkiñiz vücūd
Sükkānı ġayr-ı şāribe vü ġayr-ı ākile
Zihnim o ʿāleme göz itdikçe hep uçar
Açdıḳça göz bu ḫāke döner pāy-ı der-gile
Taṣvīr idersiñiz beşerī bir melek gibi
Ezhār-ı ḥüsn-i ḫulḳ ile envār-ı der-gile
Hiç uymayor miṣāl-i muḫayyel meʾāliñiz
Ḫāricde gördigim şu şekil-i heyākile
Taṣvīriñiz tecerrüd-i envār-ı nāṭıḳa
Ḫāricdeki heyākil ise şekl-i şākile
Bed-būy u bed-ṣadā vü bed-aḫlāḳ u bed-liḳā
Eşbāḥ, messe yol bulamaz kilk-i pā-gile
Matbūʿdur kitābda ṣūret-nümā olan
Düşmez naẓar ḳadīd-i medīde, kilā-gile

In English

1. Honourable authors, as was fitting, you have cast me into a place of hesitation, a place of difficulty.

2. Your pens give being to a world of fancy whose dwellers neither drink nor eat.

3. Whenever my mind fixes its eye on that world it flies; whenever it opens its eyes on this earth its foot sinks into mud (the line is not entirely clear).

4. You depict man like an angel, with the flowers and lights of good character (the end of the line is not entirely clear).

5. The model you imagine does not fit at all these human shapes I see outside.

6. Your depiction is an abstraction of the lights of the rational soul; the bodies outside are (another) form (the end of the line is not entirely clear).

7. Foul-smelling, foul-voiced, ill-mannered, ill-faced figures; the mud-footed pen finds no way to touch them.

8. What shows forms in the book is printed; the gaze does not fall on the dry, drawn-out reality (outside) (the couplet is not entirely clear).

Literary and Historical Commentary

Literature and life do not match; the kıta titled "Aks-ı ma'kûs", a reversed reflection, is a reader's complaint about this mismatch. The poet says that the pens of those he addresses as "müellifîn-i kirâm", honourable authors, create a world of fancy whose dwellers neither eat nor drink. These authors' portrayal of man as an angel adorned with the flowers and lights of good character makes the reader's mind fly; but when he opens his eyes on the real world his foot sinks into mud.

Between the fifth and seventh couplets the contrast becomes open: the man in the books is the abstracted light of the rational soul, while the people outside are figures foul-smelling, foul-voiced, ill-mannered and ill-faced. The "reversed reflection" of the title carries the idea that literature, instead of mirroring life, turns it upside down. Who the poem aims at is not said, but the reading of novels and stories that spread in the late Ottoman period kept such debates about idealized heroes alive. Since several rhyme words, "der-gile", "şâkile", "kilâ-gile", yield no sense as read in the thesis, the lines concerned are rendered with caution in the translation.

Bibliography

  • Zeynep Adıyahşi, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [43b-87b], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, p. 84 (poem no. 234; manuscript fol. 68b). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116831.pdf

Online sources