Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Feʿilātün feʿilātün feʿilātün feʿilün

Öper istavrozı dāʾim giyinir peşm-i siyāh
Kemre altında yaşarmış ṣıġışup ḫvār u ẕelīl
Nezdine girse cihān-gīr, ḫarāc almaḳ içün
O anıñ aḳçesini ẕimmete eyler taḥvīl
Der-i güsder ki güşāde bulunur ẓan olunur
Yorṭısı çoḳdur ider kārını ṣıḳ ṣıḳ taʿṭīl

In English

1. He kisses the cross without pause and wears black wool; he is said to live crammed under an arch, despised and abased.

2. Should a world conqueror enter his presence to take tribute, he turns his money into the status of a protected subject.

3. His door is thought to be found open (the line is not entirely clear); he has many feast days and often lays his work aside.

Literary and Historical Commentary

The word "Sefsâfdan" in the title is not explained in the thesis, and so this three-couplet satire does not quite fall into place. The person described kisses the cross, wears clothes of black wool and lives crammed under an arch, looked down upon; this picture suggests a Christian priest or monk. The second couplet alludes to the legal status of non-Muslim subjects in the Ottoman state: before the ruler who comes to take tribute, he turns his money into "zimmet", that is, he is protected in the status of a dhimmî by paying the poll tax.

The third couplet teases the feasts of the Christian calendar, the "yortu"s: he has many feast days and often lays his work aside. The same tone as the divan's other polemical texts on religions and communities is seen here in the form of a shorter and lighter mockery; a language that mocks a community's religious life reflects the prejudice of its time. Since the meaning of the title and exactly whom the poem aims at are not clear, the couplets have been translated with caution and the commentary avoids a firm judgement.

Bibliography

  • Zeynep Adıyahşi, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [43b-87b], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, p. 105 (poem no. 252; manuscript fol. 76a). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116831.pdf

Online sources