Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Metre: Mefʿūlü mefāʿīlü mefāʿīlü feʿūl
Gün ṭoġdıġın alḳışlayur erbāb-ı ḥayāt
Bir ḫaṭve daha atdı dimek dīv-i memāt
Bir şāme-resā ṣubḥ u ṣafā ṣandıġımız
Ser-çeşme-i ḫūrşīd ise ʿayn-ı ẓulümāt
In English
1. The people of life applaud the rising of the day; yet this means that the demon of death has taken one more step.
2. What we take for morning and delight is something that reaches evening; and the source of the sun is the spring of darkness.
Literary and Historical Commentary
To those who greet the rising of the day with joy, the poet speaks from a reversed point of view. Every new day is applauded like a gain; according to the poet, however, every day that dawns is a step the demon of death takes towards man. The thought of the Persian quatrain that called night and day a saw cutting life is repeated here in Turkish and with a darker image.
A paradox completes this view in the second couplet. What we take for morning and delight is a road that reaches evening; and the source of the sun, "ser-çeşme-i hûrşîd", is "ayn-ı zulümât", the spring of darkness. That the word "ayn" means both spring and eye, and that "zulümât" carries the sense of the land of darkness where the water of life was found in the story of Khidr and Alexander, gives the line a second possible interpretation: light is born of darkness and returns to darkness. The quatrain does not choose between these two readings.
Bibliography
- Havva Tok Yıldız, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [1b-43a], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, p. 106 (poem no. 108; manuscript fol. ). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116853.pdf
Online sources
