Original Persian Text
کافی نه که نامست باثر یاد کنند
با فاتحهء روح ترا شاد کنند
این تکیه و این قبّه و صندقه چراست
تاتر به خوران نام تو ایراد کنند
Latin-letter reading prepared here:
Kâfî ne ki nâmet be-eser yâd koned
Bâ fâtiḥa-î rûḥ-ı turâ şâd koned
În tekye vü în ḳubbe vü ṣandûḳa çirâst
Tâ türbe-ḫorân nâm-ı tu îrâd koned
In English
1. Is it not enough that your name be remembered through your work, that your soul be gladdened with a Fâtiha?
2. Why this lodge, this dome and this cenotaph? So that the tomb-eaters may turn your name into a source of income?
Literary and Historical Commentary
Having said in the preceding Turkish quatrain that a scholar's true monument is his work, Cûdî turns in this Persian quatrain to the other face of the culture of tombs. What a person needs is for his name to be remembered through his works and for a Fâtiha to be recited for his soul. The lodge, the dome and the cenotaph built over a grave serve another end: the "türbe-hor", the tomb-eaters, turning the dead man's name into a source of income.
"Türbe-hor", tomb-eater, is a harsh word in Ottoman society for tomb-keepers who lived on the income of the endowments set up for the upkeep of tombs and misused it. "Îrâd", in the sense of income, suggests the name being exploited like a property. The quatrain says that the buildings raised in the name of honouring the dead serve the interest of others more than they keep his name alive. That a poet close to Sufism should criticize the culture of tombs so openly is part of the divan's stance against hypocrisy and show.
Bibliography
- Havva Tok Yıldız, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [1b-43a], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, p. None (poem no. 115; manuscript fol. ). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116853.pdf
Online sources
