Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Metre: Mefāʿīlün mefāʿīlün mefāʿīlün mefāʿīlün
Ḫudānıñ başḳa başḳa luṭfıdır aʿdād-ı istiʿdād
İder semʿ ü ṣadā, çeşm ü żiyā, şemm ü hevā peydā
Ne maʿnādır ki eyler niʿmetin tervīc-i niʿmetle
Ṭabīʿatda ġıdādan evvel eyler iştihā peydā
In English
1. The variety in number of capacities is God's separate kindness; (this kindness) brings into being ear and sound, eye and light, nose and air (scent).
2. What a (subtle) meaning it is, that He makes His blessing precious through blessing; in nature He creates appetite before food.
Literary and Historical Commentary
Mutual harmony in creation is the subject of this kıta. In the first couplet each sense has been created together with an object fitted to it: ear with sound, eye with light, nose with scent. There are as many kindnesses as there are capacities, and each is completed by its counterpart. This is a concrete example, taken from the senses, of the idea of order defended in the divan against chance.
The subtlest side of this order appears in the second couplet: God "tervîc" His blessing through blessing, makes it precious; He creates appetite before food. Food is a blessing only if there is appetite; and appetite was given before food. This couplet appears in the divan once more: the last couplet of ghazal no. 183 in Adıyahşi's thesis is almost the same, and the copyist noted there that the couplet "was made the second couplet of a kıta above". This note shows that in the arrangement of the divan the poet or the copyist noticed repeated couplets and marked them.
Bibliography
- Havva Tok Yıldız, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [1b-43a], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, p. 125 (poem no. 172; manuscript fol. ). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116853.pdf
- Zeynep Adıyahşi, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [43b-87b], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, p. 25 (poem no. 183 and footnote 16). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116831.pdf
Online sources
