Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Metre: Mefāʿīlün mefāʿīlün feʿūlün
Yaşa biñler yaşa pīr ol besīman
Ki ṭabʿ-ı feyz-i nebʿiñle demādem
Ḥayāt-ı cāvidān eylersin icrā
Sözüñ ilhāmdır Allāhu aʿlem
Nedir destindeki kilk-i cihāngīr
Hezārān āferin ol iḥtişāma
İdersin kevkebeñle fikri tesḫīr
Maʿānīyi beyānıñ ḳor niẓāma
Beni mest itdi "feyeżān tecellī"
Meʾālī lemʿa-i dīdār-ı mażmūn
Suṭūrı mevce-i keysū-yı Leylā
Mezāyā-yı laṭīfī şevk-i Mecnūn
Oḳurken ḥis iderdim rūḥ-ı rāḥı
Ne nūşīn bādedir ol naẓm-ı rengīn
"Yemende bir ṣabāḥ-ı inşirāḥ" ı
Nehār-ı cennet eyler būse tażmīn
O şiʿriñ ṣanki şiʿrā-yı Yemendir
Ki burc-ı tabʿıñızdan ṭoġdı Rum'a
Ya ʿaḳdü'l-nazm lüʾlü-yi ʿadendir
Sezādır ġıbṭa-baḫş olsa nücūma
Şeb-i yeldāñızı buldum münevver
Şeb-i muẓlimde ey māh itme seyrān
Ẓalāme zülfiñi gösterme ürker
İder vechiñ sevād Leylā-i tālān
Yemm-i vaḥdetde itdikçe şināhı
Olur her cünbüşüñ bir mevce-i nūr
İder envār-ı fikriñ ṣayd-ı māhī
Düşer ḳallābıña ḫurşīd-i maġrūr
Eger ṭabʿ-ı ḥazīnim olmasaydı
Zamānıñ reng-i endūhiyle tīre
Eger ezhar-ı fikrim solmasaydı
Yazardım şiʿre birebir naẓīre
Hele olmaz baña bir vaḳt-i maḳdūr
Ki olsun neŝriñe neŝrim muʿādil
Meŝeldir söylenir bu ḳavl-i meşhūr
Ŝüreyyā nerde nerde dest-i sāʾil
Mübārek ṭabʿıñız olsun da ḫürrem
Baña kāfī anıñ şemm-i riyāḥı
Olur göñlüm hele āzāde-i ġam
Sözüñ virdikçe feyż-i inşirāḥı
In English
1. Live, live a thousand years, grow old, O smiling one (Besîm?); for with your nature from which grace wells up you carry on undying life without pause. Your word is inspiration; God knows best.
2. What is the world-conquering pen in your hand? A thousand bravos to that majesty! With your star you take thought captive, your eloquence sets meanings in order.
3. "Feyezân-ı tecellî" (The Overflowing of Manifestation) made me drunk; its ideas the gleam of a conceit like the beloved's face, its lines a wave of Leylâ's tresses, its subtle graces the longing of Mecnûn.
4. While reading I felt the spirit of wine; what a sweet wine is that colourful verse! The day of paradise greets "A Morning of Relief in Yemen" with a kiss.
5. That poem of yours is as if the Sirius of Yemen, risen from the tower of your nature over Rûm; or the string of your verse is the pearl of Aden; it is fitting if it makes the stars envious.
6. I found your longest night lit up; O moon, do not go wandering in the dark night. Do not show your dark tress to the Pleiades; your face plunders the blackness of Leylâ (night) (the sense of the couplet is not entirely clear).
7. As you swim in the sea of unity, each of your movements becomes a wave of light; the lights of your thought catch fish, the proud sun falls on your hook.
8. Had my sorrowful nature not been darkened with the colour of the age's grief, had the flowers of my thought not withered, I would write nazires to your poems one by one.
9. Indeed there will be no time within my power when my prose might equal yours; it is a proverb, this famous saying is told: "Where are the Pleiades, and where the beggar's hand!"
10. May your blessed nature be glad; the scent of its breeze is enough for me; my heart is freed from grief as long as your word gives the grace of relief.
Literary and Historical Commentary
The ten quatrains read like the letter of a reader who has gone through a poet's poems and been filled with admiration for them. The name of the one praised is not given openly; the word in the first line read in the thesis as "besîmân" may be an address to the Besîm of the müseddes that comes just before in the divan, that is, to Mehmed Besim Bey, named in Tok Yıldız's thesis as the poet's friend of many years. The quoted phrases in the poem, "Feyezân-ı tecellî" and "Yemende bir sabâh-ı inşirâh", look like the titles of poems the praised poet sent to Cûdî; since they cannot be verified, no firm judgement has been made.
The praise is built with the familiar comparisons of divan poetry: the pen conquers the world, the lines ripple like Leylâ's tresses, the poem is the Sirius of Yemen or a pearl of Aden. The image in the seventh quatrain is especially vivid: the praised poet swims in the "sea of unity", the lights of his thought catch fish, and even the proud sun is caught on his hook. In the eighth and ninth quatrains the poet turns to his own state: had his nature not been darkened by the grief of the age, he would write a nazire to every poem, but as the proverb "Where are the Pleiades, and where the beggar's hand" says, he cannot reach that height. This humility agrees with the voice of the Cûdî seen elsewhere in the divan, who avoids publishing his poems and holds himself back.
Bibliography
- Zeynep Adıyahşi, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [43b-87b], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, pp. 37-38 (poem no. 192; manuscript fol. 50b-51a). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116831.pdf
- Havva Tok Yıldız, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [1b-43a], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, p. 7 (friendship with Besim Bey). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116853.pdf
Online sources
