Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Metre: Mefʿūlü mefāʿīlü mefāʿīlün faʿ (fāʿ ) and Mefʿūlü mefāʿīlü mefāʿīlü feʿūl
Bī-mihr-i zen dehr ile itdikçe cimāʿ
Evlād zinā-veş ṭoġar envāʿ-ı ṣudāʿ
Merdān-ı Ḫudā dehri bilüp nā-maḥrem
Geldikde selām itmedi gitdikde vedāʿ
In English
1. As long as one couples with the world, a loveless woman, children are born as if of adultery: headaches of every kind.
2. The men of God knew the world to be a stranger not to be approached; when they came they did not greet her, and when they left they did not bid her farewell.
Literary and Historical Commentary
The image of a marriage made with the world reaches its harshest point here. The "children" born of coupling with the world, a loveless woman, are, as if born of adultery, headaches of every kind: troubles, worries, endless tasks. The word "ṣudâ'", headache, describes the fruits of attachment to the world in a language both bitter and everyday.
The contrary example is in the second couplet: "merdân-ı Hudâ", the men of God, knew the world as "nâ-mahrem", a woman who is a stranger and must not be approached. So when they came to her they did not greet her, and when they left they did not bid her farewell; they came and went without ever becoming bound to the world. The legal notion of the non-mahram turns here into an image of keeping away from the world. The thought of transience in the divan's quatrains "Gün doğduğın alkışlayur" and "Âğûş-ı zamâne düşen ağlar" is worked anew in this sequence in the language of family and marriage.
Bibliography
- Havva Tok Yıldız, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [1b-43a], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, p. 113 (poem no. 132; manuscript fol. ). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116853.pdf
Online sources
