Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Metre: Mefʿūlü mefāʿīlü mefāʿīlün faʿ (fāʿ) and Mefʿūlü mefāʿīlü mefāʿīlü feʿūl
Māhiyet-i eşyā ki görünmez göziñe
Yeldā diseler lāyıḳ olur gündüzüñe
Sen mīşeye ḫurmāyı iderseñ telḳīḥ
Ṭutmaz ay efendim özüm uymaz özüñe
In English
1. If the essence of things does not appear to your eye, it would be fitting to call your daytime "yeldâ" (the longest night of the year).
2. If you graft a date palm onto an oak, it will not take; ah, my lord, my nature does not suit your nature.
Literary and Historical Commentary
An image from gardening serves to describe a deep incompatibility between two people. In the first couplet the addressee's blindness is described through a comparison with night: for one who cannot see the essence of things, even the day is a "yeldâ" night. Yeldâ is the longest night of the year, at the winter solstice, and in Persian poetry the emblem of darkness and long waiting.
The main image lies in the second couplet. A date palm cannot be grafted onto an oak; the natures of the two trees do not suit each other and the graft does not take. The poet applies this knowledge to the relation between himself and his addressee: "my nature does not suit your nature." The word "telkîh", in the sense of grafting, had also appeared as a medical term in the divan's poem "Hayâl"; here it returns to the language of gardening. The whole sounds like a somewhat weary, somewhat ironic word of farewell spoken at the end of an argument with someone who does not understand him.
Bibliography
- Havva Tok Yıldız, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [1b-43a], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, p. 110 (poem no. 121; manuscript fol. ). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116853.pdf
Online sources
