Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Metre: Mefʿūlü mefāʿīlü mefāʿīlün faʿ (fāʿ) and Mefʿūlü mefāʿīlün mefāʿīlün feʿūl
Taḥḳīḳ-i ḥaḳīḳatde ḫired sāhīdir
Bir fikr bu gūne ḫaḳsa yarın vāhīdir
Enẓār-ı ġalaṭ-kārañe aldanma ṣakıñ
Āŝār, ṭabiʿīyi degil, ilāhīdir
In English
1. In searching out the truth the intellect errs; if a thought seems right in this way today, tomorrow it proves empty.
2. Beware of being deceived by erring views; the works are not nature's, they are God's.
Literary and Historical Commentary
"Âsâr tabî'î değil, ilâhîdir", the works are not nature's, they are God's: the last line binds the whole thought into this judgement, and makes the quatrain one of the shortest expressions of the divan's criticism of materialism and naturalism. Cûdî's answer to the views, debated among Ottoman intellectuals at the end of the nineteenth century, that explained being solely by the laws of nature is plain.
The first couplet prepares this answer with a criticism of knowledge. The intellect may err in searching out the truth; a thought believed right today may prove empty tomorrow. These words can also be read as a reference to the ever-changing theories of science: the conclusions human reason reaches are passing. The poet names this transience not to reject reason wholly but to remind of its limit. The idea of order defended against chance in the müseddes "Hey'et-i Âlem" at the beginning of the divan is repeated in this quatrain in the same direction, but as a four-line warning.
Bibliography
- Havva Tok Yıldız, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [1b-43a], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, p. 111 (poem no. 124; manuscript fol. ). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116853.pdf
Online sources
