Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mefʿūlü fāʿilātü mefāʿīlü fāʿilün

Eṭrāf-ı āfitābı her aḳşam ṣarar ki
Biñ şekl-i dil-nişīnde müẕehheb seḥābeler
Ebriñ bu semte nāẓır olan vechi simsiyāh
Parlar öbür yüzinde müzerkeş ḥicābeler
Tersīm ider ufuḳda gehī ebr-i tārmār
Muẓlim cezīrelerle ḳaranlıḳ ḫarābeler
Eşcār-ı ser-şikeste vü aġṣān-ı münkesir
Üftāde seng-i maḳbere mübhem kitābeler
Gāhī olur nigāh-ı ḫayālimde mürtesim
Arslanlar açmış aġzını meydānda nābeler
Dünbāle fırlamış ṣaçı ürpermiş esneyur
Ṣalḳım ṣaçaḳ aḳar deheninden luʿābeler
Timsāḥlar ki erre-i dendānı ṣırtarır
Balinalar ki aġzına ṭolmuş nüşābeler
Ḳartallar uçmaġa ḳanād açmış ṭurur gibi
Minkār ü miḫlebiyle muhācim ʿiḳābeler
Baʿżan ḥażırlanır gibi şāhāne bir simāṭ
Zer tepsi, ṣırma ḫavlı, gümüş āfitābeler
Gerdūn süvār olur da uzaḳdan gelir gibi
Giymiş balo libāsını şübbān ü şābeler
Kürsī-nişīn-i mevʿiẓe bir pīr-i liḥye-dār
Īrād ider cemāʿate mūḥiş ḫiṭābeler
Uymaz bugünki dünkine hep başḳadır ġurūb
Tekrār ider mi şeklini mevc-i yem-i ġuyūb

In English

1. Every evening gilded clouds in a thousand heart-catching shapes surround the sun.

2. The face of the cloud that looks this way is jet black; on its other face gold-embroidered veils shine.

3. At times the scattered cloud draws on the horizon dark islands and gloomy ruins.

4. Trees with broken heads and snapped branches, fallen gravestones, illegible inscriptions.

5. At times there appear in the gaze of my fancy lions roaring with open mouths in the arena.

6. Tails flung up, manes bristling, they yawn; slaver flows in clusters from their mouths.

7. Crocodiles that bare the saws of their teeth; whales whose mouths are filled with arrows.

8. Eagles standing as if they had spread their wings to fly; birds of prey attacking with beak and talon.

9. At times it is as if a royal table were being laid: a gold tray, an embroidered towel, silver ewers.

10. As if riding in a carriage and coming from afar, young men and girls dressed in ball gowns.

11. A bearded old man seated in the preacher's chair delivers terrifying sermons to the congregation.

12. Today's sunset does not match yesterday's; it is always another; does the wave of the sea of the unseen repeat its shape?

Literary and Historical Commentary

A catalogue of the shapes seen in the clouds: that is how "Gurûb", sunset, the second poem of the Olympus series, describes an evening sky. A game everyone has known since childhood, seeing animals and people in the clouds, here becomes a method of poetry. The first couplets describe the light: the face of the clouds turned this way is black, the other face gold-embroidered. Then come the shapes: dark islands, ruins, trees with broken heads, fallen gravestones.

From the fifth couplet on, the catalogue comes alive: roaring lions, crocodiles baring their teeth, eagles with spread wings; then a royal table, young people in ball dresses, and a bearded old man delivering terrifying sermons from the preacher's chair. These last two images set in the same sky both the new social life of the late Ottoman city, the ball, and the old mosque sermon. The last couplet closes with a thought: today's sunset does not resemble yesterday's; the sea of the unseen does not repeat the shape of its waves. This is the counterpart, seen in an evening sky, of the divan's idea that "God does not repeat His manifestation".

Bibliography

  • Zeynep Adıyahşi, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [43b-87b], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, pp. 89-90 (poem no. 240; manuscript fol. 70b). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116831.pdf

Online sources