Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Metre: Mütefāʿilün mütefāʿilün mütefāʿilün mütefāʿilün
ʿAraḳ-ı cebīn sitāre mi, ya beyāż bāṣıra-i melek
Ser-i şāḫa -raġm-i bahāra mı- ṭaḳıyor çeleng-i güher-felek
Ḳameriñ ġubārı mıdır bu sīm, düşürür yere üfürüp nesīm
Ya tırāş olup felek-i cesīm, ṭaġıdır ḳılın yere silkerek
İniyor zemīne uṣūl uṣūl, gözetir gibi edebü'l-vuṣūl
Ṣaḳalın ṭarar heremü'l-fuṣūl, dökülür beyāżı ufaḳ tefek
İdiyor zemīni sefīd-pūş, ki bulunmaya leke ya nuḳūş
Yuvası ḳamerde olan sürūş, ṭutacaḳ bu yirde meger tüfenk
Uzatır elin ṣanaraḳ nevāl, şu bahāra ḥasret olan nihāl
Ṣarınır beyāża mülk-i miŝāl, bilenir ḳımāṭa güzel bebek
Süzülüp iner kelebek midir, ya şitāya ḫāṣ çiçek midir
Yumuşaḳdır un mı kepek midir, şu bulut mıdır eleyen elek
Döşenir zemīne çemen gibi şu ḳadar ki rengi semen gibi
Diyemem beyāż kefen gibi, ki ṣoġuḳ düşer o ḫayāl pek
Eger olmasaydı liḳāsı serd, dir idim aña varaḳāt-ı verd
Kimi ḳuş başı kimi cüz-i ferd, yıġılır zemīne öbek öbek
Görün āsumāndaki kevkebi, ya Mıṣr-ı kitri ya leblebi
Ṣañacaḳ zemīni muḥallebi, ya şeker tozı ekilen börek
ʿAcabā naṣıl görinür küre, bize parlayup görinenlere
Meŝelā ki bedr-i münevvere diyecekler al saña müşterek
Yazılı degilse de ḫayr u şer, ṣuḥuf-ı müneşşere-veş düşer
Ḳara ṭopraḳ üstüne nūr üşer, bürinür yaḳīne ẓalām-ı şek
In English
1. Is the star the sweat of the brow, or the white tear of an angel? Is the sky, in spite of spring, hanging a garland of jewels on the tip of the branch? (the couplet is not entirely clear)
2. Is this silver the dust of the moon that the dawn breeze blows down to the ground? Or has the great sky been shaved, and scatters its hairs shaking them to the ground?
3. It comes down to the earth softly, softly, as if minding the manners of arrival; the old age of the seasons combs its beard, and its white falls in little bits.
4. It clothes the earth in white so that neither stain nor pattern remains; the angel whose nest is in the moon, it seems, will be shot by a gun in this place (the line is not entirely clear).
5. The sapling that longs for spring stretches out its hand thinking it a gift; the world of images wraps itself in white, the pretty baby is swaddled.
6. Is it a butterfly gliding down, or a flower proper to winter? It is soft; is it flour, or bran? Is that cloud a sieve that sifts?
7. It is spread over the earth like a meadow, its colour so like jasmine; I cannot say like a white shroud, that image falls too cold.
8. Were its face not cold I would call it rose petals; some as big as a bird's head, some small as an atom, it piles on the ground in heaps.
9. See the star in the sky: either Egyptian sugar candy or a roasted chickpea; you will take the earth for a milk pudding, or a börek sprinkled with powdered sugar (the couplet is not entirely clear).
10. I wonder how the globe looks to those that look shining to us? For example, they will say to the full moon, "here, a partner for you."
11. Though good and evil are not written on it, it falls like pages spread open; light swarms over the black earth, and the darkness of doubt is wrapped in certainty.
Literary and Historical Commentary
Snowfall is the subject of one of the most cheerful nature poems in the divan; the note "kar", snow, set on the metre line in the thesis says as much. Every line is built with internal rhyme: "nesîm" and "cesîm", "usûl" and "vusûl", "nevâl" and "nihâl" and the like; these internal rhymes create a light, skipping sound that recalls the rhythm of snowflakes.
The poem's method is a shower of questions and comparisons: is the snow the dust of the moon, the hairs of the shaven sky, gliding butterflies, flowers proper to winter, flour, bran, a sifting cloud? The old age of the seasons combs its beard and its white falls in little bits; the world of images wraps itself in white, the baby is swaddled. In the seventh couplet the poet corrects himself: it is possible to liken snow to a white shroud, but that image "falls too cold". Kitchen comparisons such as the milk pudding and the börek sprinkled with powdered sugar in the ninth couplet continue here the everyday delight of the Ramadan poems.
The tenth couplet jokes with an unexpected astronomical view: how does the snow-covered globe look to the planets and the moon looking from afar? No doubt the moon will be told, "here, a partner for you", for the earth too shines white like it. The last couplet, with an image that recalls the verse of the sura al-Takwîr, "when the pages are spread open" (81:10), likens the snow to open pages on which neither good nor evil is written; the black earth is wrapped in light, the darkness of doubt turns into the brightness of certainty.
Bibliography
- Zeynep Adıyahşi, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [43b-87b], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, pp. 102-103 (poem no. 250; manuscript fol. 75a-75b). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116831.pdf
Online sources
