Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mefāʿilün feʿilātün mefāʿilün feʿilün

Bizim tiren gidiyordu kemāl-i sürʿatle
Vaṭan cüdālara maḫṣūṣ şevḳ-i vuṣlatla
İçerdi baʿde mesāfātı bir ḥarāretle
Vaġonda pencerelerden ṭaşan şeṭāretle
Uzaḳlaşırdı keder yaḳlaşan meserretle
Bizim tiren uçuyordu kemāl-i sürʿatle
Yanımda "ṣāfī" küçük yāveri fikr-i ṣafvetle
Baḳar da pencereden dir: "Baba! Baba! Bakıñız!
Şu tel direkleri hep arḳaya ḳaçar vız vız
Gidiñ o geldigimiz yerlere selāmetle"
Bizim tiren geçiyordu kemāl-i sürʿatle
Ḳurā ahālisi meşġūl idi zirāʿatle
Büyük küçük ḳadın erkek biraz işi bıraḳup
Baḳar ḳıṭār-ı şitābān-ı fart-ı ḥayretle
Selām alır gibi el ṣallayup işāretle

In English

1. Our train was going at full speed, with the longing for reunion proper to those parted from home; it drank in the distances with a warmth; with the cheer overflowing from the windows of the carriage, sorrow drew away as joy drew near.

2. Our train was flying at full speed; beside me Sâfî, my little helper, looks out of the window with a pure thought and says: "Father! Father! Look! All these telegraph poles are running backwards, whizz whizz; go safely back to the places we came from!"

3. Our train was passing at full speed; the villagers were busy with their farming; big and small, women and men, leaving their work a little, look at the hurrying train in great wonder and wave their hands as if returning a greeting.

Literary and Historical Commentary

A train passing through the Vardar plain in May 1904 is the scene of the three stanzas titled "Şimendifer", railway train; few poems in the divan record a scene from life so vividly and directly. Date and place are known from the note at the end of the previous poem. Each stanza begins with the refrain "Bizim tiren ... kemâl-i sürat ile", our train ... at full speed, and the verb changes each time: was going, was flying, was passing. This small change carries the speed of the train into the rhythm of the poem.

The second stanza carries the warmest lines of the divan. Beside the poet sits his little son Sâfî, who looks out of the window and says that the telegraph poles are running backwards, "whizz whizz"; the child wishes the poles a safe journey back to the places they came from. The illusion of motion seen through a child's eyes enters the poem directly in spoken language, "Baba! Baba! Bakıñız!", Father! Father! Look! Cûdî, who elsewhere in the divan names his little son reciting the Qur'an at home, here shows him as a travelling companion. The third stanza ends with the villagers looking at the train in wonder and waving; it is a scene from a time when the railway was still something new in the Balkan countryside. The long mesnevi that follows goes on telling the same journey and the change the railway brought.

Bibliography

  • Zeynep Adıyahşi, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [43b-87b], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, pp. 56-57 (poem no. 211; manuscript fol. 58a-58b). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116831.pdf

Online sources