Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mefʿūlü fāʿilātü mefāʿīlü fāʿilün

Ne dīn içün ne devlet içün, kūy u şehr içün
Herkes çocuḳ yetişdirir āsīb-i dehr içün
Nā-ḳābil-i muḳāvemet icbār-ı ṭabʿ içün
Tevlīdimiz müvellede ẓan itme mihr içün
Bir vāḳıʿayla cāẕibeniñ żavʾidir ḥayāt
Çaḳmaḳ ṭaşı dinilse revādır sipihr içün
Maḫtūm-ı dest-i ḥaḳdır ināŝıñ bekāreti
Cemīʿiniñ ḥużūrı gerek fek-i mühr içün
Tekŝīr-i nesle saʿy olunur her ḳabīlede
Yek-diger-i taḥakküme taḥkīm-i ẓahr içün
Āzāde bir meşīʾetiñ āŝārıdır cihān
İnsān ṣanır ki ḫalḳ olunur luṭf u ḳahr içün
Gāhī sükūt, gāh tekellüm gerek imiş
Gūyā namāz içindeyiz iḫfā vü cehr içün

In English

1. Not for religion, nor for the state, nor for quarter and town; everyone raises children for the calamity of the times.

2. It is for the compulsion of an irresistible nature; do not think our begetting is out of love for the one begotten.

3. Life is the light of attraction struck by a collision; it is fitting that the sky be called a flint.

4. The virginity of women is sealed by God's hand; the presence of all (the witnesses) is needed to break the seal.

5. In every tribe men strive to multiply their offspring, to strengthen their backing for dominating one another.

6. The world is the work of a free will; man thinks he is created for kindness and wrath.

7. It seems there must be now silence, now speech; as if we were at prayer, for the silent and the spoken (recitation).

Literary and Historical Commentary

Children and offspring are seen in these seven couplets with a harsh and sceptical eye. The equation "Ferzend = Ferizend" in the title looks like a play on words, but its sense is not explained by the thesis and could not be resolved here either. The poem's judgement is given in the first couplet: people raise their children not for religion, state or town, but for the calamity of the times. The second couplet grows harsher still: having children comes not from love for the child to be born but from the compulsion of an irresistible nature.

The third couplet turns to an image from physics: life is the light of attraction born of a collision, and the sky is therefore like a flint. The fourth couplet describes the condition of marriage in Islamic law, a contract made in the presence of witnesses, as the breaking of a seal "sealed by God's hand". The fifth ties the growth of population to the contest for power between tribes. The last two couplets widen the subject: the world is the work of a free will; man must know now to keep silent and now to speak, just as in prayer some parts are recited silently and some aloud. The epitaph the poet wrote for his own grave in the divan carries the same pessimistic thought on birth and death, and the kıta reads like a continuation of it.

Bibliography

  • Zeynep Adıyahşi, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [43b-87b], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, p. 86 (poem no. 237; manuscript fol. 69a-69b). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116831.pdf

Online sources