Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Metre: Mefʿūlü mefāʿīlü mefāʿīlün faʿ (fāʿ) and Mefʿūlü mefāʿīlü mefāʿīlü feʿūl
Esdikçe ṣabā ḥāllenir evrāḳ u ġuṣūn
Gūyā oḳur āheng ile şiʿr-i mevzūn
Her berg-i mühezzizde uyur bir sevdā
Ṭıfla beşigiñ cünbişidir ḫᵛāb-ı sükūn
In English
1. As the morning breeze blows, the leaves and branches fall into a rapture; as if they recited a measured poem in harmony.
2. In every trembling leaf a passion sleeps; for a child, the rocking of the cradle is the sleep of rest.
Literary and Historical Commentary
"Esdikçe sabâ", as the morning breeze blows: this quatrain and the one that follows open with the same words and describe the same scene in two different ways; this suggests that the poet worked twice on the same observation of nature. In the first quatrain the leaves and branches swaying in the breeze fall into a "hâl", a rapture, and seem to recite a measured poem in harmony. This view, reading nature as the text of a poem, is often seen in the divan.
An unexpected comparison closes the second couplet. In every trembling leaf a passion lies asleep; the swaying of the leaf lulls that passion to sleep, as the rocking of the cradle puts a child to sleep. This contrast between the movement of the wind and the stillness of sleep is the quatrain's fine conceit: stirring brings peace. The next quatrain will turn the same scene, this time, into a scene of love.
Bibliography
- Havva Tok Yıldız, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [1b-43a], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, p. 107 (poem no. 110; manuscript fol. ). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116853.pdf
Online sources
