Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Metre: Mefʿūlü mefāʿīlü mefāʿīlün faʿ (fāʿ) and Mefʿūlü mefāʿīlün mefāʿīlün feʿūl
Bir süri belā ḳurdı ḳader mevc-ā-mevc
Tecrīde yürütdi alayın fevc-ā-fevc
Bir ʿaḳd-ı ġıyābiyle idilmiş gördüm
Dünyāyı baña zevce, beni hem aña zevc
In English
1. Destiny set up a flock of troubles, wave upon wave; it marched (me) in troop after troop towards detachment from the world.
2. I saw that by a contract made in absence they had made the world my wife, and me her husband.
Literary and Historical Commentary
The man who fell into fortune's wheel in the previous quatrain finds himself in this one within an unexpected marriage. In the first couplet destiny sets up a flock of troubles wave upon wave and marches him in troop after troop towards "tecrîd", detachment from the world; while hardships ought to draw a man away from the world, the result is just the opposite.
The satirical conceit comes in the second couplet. Without his knowledge the poet has been married to the world by "akd-i gıyâbî", a marriage contract made in absence: the world has become his wife and he the world's husband. In Islamic law a marriage in absence is a contract at which one of the parties is not present; here this legal term is used to describe man's being bound to the world without his consent being asked. In divan poetry the world is often likened to an old hag, to "arûs-ı dehr", the bride of time who has had a thousand husbands; Cûdî freshens this old image by turning it into a scene of marriage.
Bibliography
- Havva Tok Yıldız, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [1b-43a], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, p. 112 (poem no. 129; manuscript fol. 38b). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116853.pdf
Online sources
