Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Metre: Mefʿūlü mefāʿīlü mefāʿīlün faʿ(fāʿ) and Mefʿūlü mefāʿīlü mefāʿīlü feʿūl
Dünyāda naṣībiñ ne ise celbine baḳ
“Lā tense naṣībik” didi peyġamber ḥaḳ
Dünyā neme lāzım diye itme ihmāl
Bir mesʾeledir emr-i maʿāş eñ muġlaḳ
In English
1. Whatever your share in this world may be, see to obtaining it; "Do not forget your share", God and the Prophet said.
2. Do not neglect it, saying "What is the world to me?"; earning a living is the most knotted of questions.
Literary and Historical Commentary
Beside the divan's counsels to renounce the world, this quatrain sets a realistic voice that balances them. The words "lâ tense nasîbek", do not forget your share, from the Qur'anic verse "seek, through what God has given you, the abode of the hereafter, and do not forget your share of this world" (al-Qasas 28:77), are the quatrain's foundation; the poet names these words as a command of God and the Prophet.
Against the attitude "dünya neme lazım", what is the world to me, which may look like a Sufi indifference, the second couplet takes a stand. Earning a living, "emr-i maâş", is to the poet one of the most knotted of questions and cannot be neglected. Coming right after the joking quatrains on the burden of marriage and family and those describing the state of one who marries far from home, this quatrain shows that the poet also took the material burden of life seriously. That a poet who often speaks of the world's transience should care about a living points less to a contradiction than to the sense of measure in the divan's general stance.
Bibliography
- Havva Tok Yıldız, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [1b-43a], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, p. 118 (poem no. 148; manuscript fol. ). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116853.pdf
Online sources
