Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Metre: Mefʿūlü mefāʿīlü mefāʿīlün faʿ (fāʿ) and Mefʿūlü mefāʿīlü mefāʿīlü feʿūl
Bildim ki cihān hestī-i çīzīdendir
Yegānegī kevn-i ekmel-i tīzīdedir
Nerden geliyor ḫāke bu nuṭḳ-ı cān-baḥş
Ḥayret baña bu ḥis ġarīzīdendir
In English
1. I came to know that the world arises from the being of some small thing; uniqueness lies in the sharpness of the most perfect being. (The couplet is not entirely clear.)
2. Whence comes to the earth this life-giving speech? This feeling is a wonder in me that is innate.
Literary and Historical Commentary
Some words in the first couplet resist the reading given in the thesis; the phrases "hestî-i çîzî" and "tîzî" give no certain meaning in context. It seems that the poet ties the being of the world to the being of some small thing and sees uniqueness as a quality of the most perfect being. For this reason the English prose of the first couplet is given as a suggestion.
The second couplet is clear by contrast, and carries the quatrain's real question: whence comes this life-giving speech, "nutk-ı cân-bahş", to man created from earth? That man can speak, that a being of earth can produce meaning, fills the poet with wonder, and he says that this wonder itself is an innate, "garîzî", feeling. This amazement at the miracle of language and speech is a more positive face of the divan's debates on "hayvân-ı nâtık", the speaking animal.
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. 123; manuscript fol. 38a). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116853.pdf
Online sources
