Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mefāʿilün feʿilātün mefāʿilün feʿilün

Nedir şu pīş-i dü-çeşmimde mevc uran deryā
Şu deşt-i nā-mütenāhī şu bī-ḥudūd feżā
Feżā mı deşt mi deryā mı ben daḫi bilemem
Ki nefs-i nāṭıḳamıñ iḫtirāʿıdı esmā
Şu manẓara, şu ḫavāriḳ, şu levḥa-i iʿcāz
Şu mübhemāt-ı muṭalsem bedāhat-ı ʿuẓemā
Şu lemʿa lemʿa tecellī, şu laḥẓa laḥẓa şuhūd
Şu reng reng bedāʾiʿ, şu mevce mevce żiyā
Şu kevkebāt-ı kevākib şu şaʾşaʾāt-ı nücūm
Şu bī-vuḳūf-ı ḳavāfil şu bī-sükūn-ı melā
Şu devr içinde ġarībāne seyr-i bī-ḫaberi
Bu seyr içinde şu āmīziş-i ʿaleʾl-ʿamyā
Ḳabūl-ı nisbete yek-dīger itse de eşyā
Yetīm-i bī-neseb eczāyı lā-yetecezzā
İmān nedir şu muʿammāyı ġayr-ı ḳābil ḥall
Cihān mı kevn ü mekān mı melāmīdir ne belā
Kefen-be-dūş ḳıyāmet mebaʿŝŝirāt-ı vücūd
Çalındı var ise mizmār-ı maḥşer-i kübrā
Şu āsumān-ı bedīʿeʾn-nuḳūş mevc-ā-mevc
Ne şānlı kevkebe yā rab ne ser-bülend livā
Sevād-ı mülk-i ḳadem ḫīre-sāz-ı çeşm-i ḥudūŝ
Beyāż-ı ṣubḥ-ı ezel perde-çāk-ı ʿayn-ı fenā

In English

1. What is this sea surging before my two eyes, this endless desert, this boundless space?

2. Is it space, desert or sea? I too cannot tell; for names are the invention of my rational soul.

3. This scene, these wonders, this tableau of miracle; these spellbound mysteries, this plainness of great things.

4. This manifestation gleam by gleam, this witnessing moment by moment; these wonders colour by colour, this light wave upon wave.

5. This splendour of the planets, these flashes of the stars; these caravans that never halt, this throng that finds no rest.

6. This strange, unknowing journey within the turning; within this journey this blind mingling.

7. Though things accept relation to one another, the indivisible particles are orphans without lineage.

8. Mercy, what is this riddle that cannot be solved? Is it the world, or being and place; what calamity is this? (Some words of the line are unclear as read in the thesis.)

9. The scattered parts of being with shrouds on their shoulders, as if the Last Day had come; if the pipe of the great Resurrection has been blown. (The couplet is not entirely clear.)

10. This sky of wondrous patterns, wave upon wave; O Lord, what a glorious procession, what a lofty banner!

11. The darkness of the land of eternity dazzles the eye of things that came to be; the whiteness of the dawn of eternity tears the veil of the eye of annihilation.

Literary and Historical Commentary

The third and last part of the series voices bewilderment in its plainest form: the poet looks at the infinity surging before his eyes and cannot even give it a name. The second couplet is the series' most striking thought. He cannot tell whether it is space, desert or sea, for names are the invention of the rational soul. The universe itself is nameless, and the names man gives it show not its truth but man's effort to grasp it. This idea carries an intuition of the philosophy of language seldom met in the traditional language of divan poetry.

The third, fourth and fifth couplets turn into a long enumeration beginning with the demonstrative "şu", this: this scene, this tableau of miracle, this manifestation gleam by gleam, this light wave upon wave, these caravans that never halt. It is as if the poet points at the sky with his finger and falls into fresh amazement with every gesture. The seventh couplet calls the "cüz'-i lâ-yetecezzâ" of kalâm, the indivisible particle, "orphans without lineage"; things are linked to one another, but the smallest particles, it is said, belong to no one.

The last two couplets lift the gaze upward again. The sky is a glorious procession and a lofty banner; the closing couplet compares eternity and annihilation through colours. The darkness of eternity dazzles the eye of things that came to be, the whiteness of the dawn of eternity tears the veil of the eye of nonbeing. For a few words in the eighth and ninth couplets the thesis's reading offers no sense, and the English for those two is no more than an approximation.

Bibliography

  • Havva Tok Yıldız, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [1b-43a], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, p. 50 (poem no. 41; manuscript fol. 15a-15b). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116853.pdf

Online sources