Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mefʿūlü fāʿilātü mefāʿīlü fāʿilün

Olmuşdı kim bilir kime ol gün çerāġ ü dāġ
Sönmekde der-güneş dem-i iḳbāl dün gibi
Ḥükmi geçince parlamıyor çeşm-i ḥikmete
Vaḳtiyle dehre şaʿşaʿa ṣalmış ẓunūn gibi
Naḳşın siler yavaş yavaş evrāḳ-ı rūzdan
Maḥve olur mübeddel o günki şuʾūn gibi
Görmüş derīn öñündeki deryā-yı ẓulmeti
Ürkmüş verā-yı kūha ṭayanmış ḥarūn gibi
ʿAşḳıñ o günki dökdigi ḫūn-ābı ṭoplamış
Düşmüş ufuḳ kenārına ṭaşt-ı nigūn gibi
Gūyā güzel güneş orada ẕebḥ olındı da
Ṭutdı cihānı mevce-i ṭūfān-ı ḫūn gibi
Ṭaġ arḳasında ṣanki büyük bir ḥarīḳ var
Āfāḳ-ı pür-lehīb-i firūzān firūn gibi
Eflāke ser çeken ʿalev-i iʿtilā ḳarīn
İtmiş kenār-ı ufḳı cehennem-nümūn gibi
Şeffāf ü āteşin, ḳoyu bir āl ki müncelī
Yāḳūt u laʿl ü aḫker ü ḫūn-ı cünūn gibi
Ẕeyl-i şimālden ser-i ceyb-i cenūba dek
Bir ḥumret-i müşaʿşaʿa mümted sütūn gibi
Ġarbıñ bu ḳanlı manẓarası körfezi ider
Yek-pāre āl çuḫayla döşenmiş ṣalon gibi
Maġrib şebiñ veḳāyiʿına bir muḳaddime
Yaʿnī payine ḥacle ya veylāt-ı muẓlime

In English

1. Who knows to whom that day had been a lamp, to whom a wound; the moment of fortune fades with the sun as yesterday did (the couplet is not entirely clear).

2. When its rule has passed it no longer shines to the eye of wisdom, like conjectures that once spread their radiance over the world.

3. Slowly it wipes its image from the leaves of the day; it changes and vanishes like that day's affairs.

4. It saw the deep of the dark sea before it; it shied and, like a restive horse, leaned back behind the mountain.

5. It has gathered the bloody tears that love shed that day; it has fallen to the edge of the horizon like an overturned basin.

6. As if the beautiful sun had been slaughtered there and covered the world like the wave of a flood of blood.

7. As if there were a great fire behind the mountain; the horizons full of flame, glowing like an oven.

8. The flame of loftiness that reaches to the heavens has made the edge of the horizon like hell.

9. A deep red, transparent and fiery, plainly seen: like ruby, garnet, ember and the blood of madness.

10. From the skirt of the north to the tip of the collar of the south a radiant redness stretches like a column.

11. This bloody scene of the west makes the gulf like a salon carpeted with a single piece of red broadcloth.

12. Evening is a preface to the events of the night: that is, at its end either a bridal chamber or dark laments.

Literary and Historical Commentary

After the cloud shapes comes the colour of the sunset; the third poem of the Olympus series concentrates wholly on this red. Here the sun fades like a fortune: like conjectures that once spread radiance over the world and then fell from esteem, it slowly wipes its image from the leaves of the day. The fourth couplet likens the sun to a restive horse that shies at the dark sea before it and draws back behind the mountain; in the fifth it falls to the edge of the horizon like an overturned basin, carrying within it the bloody tears love has shed.

The middle of the poem is a picture of colour and fire: as if the sun had been slaughtered there and a flood of blood covered the world; there is a great fire behind the mountain, the horizon is like an oven and like hell. The ninth couplet describes the red with four precious and terrible things: ruby, garnet, ember and the blood of madness. The "salon carpeted with a single piece of red broadcloth" in the eleventh couplet describes the reflection on the gulf through a modern interior image taken from the town houses of the period. The last couplet sees evening as a preface to the events of the night: the night will end either in a bridal chamber or in dark laments. This ending, which opens from a landscape onto the two ends of human life, joy and mourning, prepares the next poem of the series, the poem of moonlight.

Bibliography

  • Zeynep Adıyahşi, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [43b-87b], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, pp. 90-91 (poem no. 241; manuscript fol. 70b-71a). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116831.pdf

Online sources