Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mefʿūlü mefāʿīlü mefāʿīlün faʿ (fāʿ) and Mefʿūlü mefāʿīlü mefāʿīlü feʿūl

Küfrüñ ṭışı zīver içi şūr u şerdir
Ferdāsı perīşān olacaḳ mezheredir
Ṣabun köpügünden üfürüp yapdıġımız
Şeffāf balondur ki söner bī-ferdir

In English

1. The outside of unbelief is adorned, its inside is turmoil and evil; it is a bouquet that will be scattered tomorrow.

2. It is a transparent balloon we blow and make from soap foam, which goes out without a gleam.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Unbelief is likened here to something that looks beautiful but is empty within. In the first couplet there is a "mezhere", a bouquet or flower vase, adorned outside and in turmoil within, which will be scattered tomorrow. The comparison in the second couplet is one of the divan's most endearing and most modern images: a transparent balloon made by blowing soap foam.

This everyday scene of children playing with soap bubbles has been put in place of divan poetry's image of "habâb", the water bubble, to express transience. The balloon looks colourful and bright, but when touched it goes out "bî-fer", without a gleam. The word "balon" itself is a new word that entered Ottoman Turkish in the nineteenth century. Just as Cûdî uses new words such as telegraph, stamp, railway and observatory in other poems of the divan, here too he uses a new plaything of everyday life to express an old thought.

Bibliography

  • Havva Tok Yıldız, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [1b-43a], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, p. 120 (poem no. 156; manuscript fol. 40b-41a). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116853.pdf

Online sources