Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Metre: Mefʿūlü mefāʿīlü mefāʿīlün faʿ (fāʿ) and Mefʿūlü mefāʿīlü mefāʿīlü feʿūl
Āyīne-yi envār-ı Ḫudādır ṭabʿıñ
Mirʾāt-ı muṣaffāyı ṣafādır ṭabʿıñ
Mirʾāt-ı celī şaʿşaʿa kim zerre bile
ʿAks eylese ḫūrşīd-nümādır ṭabʿıñ
In English
1. Your nature is the mirror of God's lights; your nature is a polished mirror that gives delight.
2. So bright a mirror that if even a mote were reflected in it, your nature would show it like the sun.
Literary and Historical Commentary
What is praised is a person's "tab'", that is, his nature, his disposition and poetic gift; who the addressee is is not said. The word "tab'" in divan poetry also means the poet's power of utterance; so the quatrain can also be read as a praise directed at a poet's gift. The refrain "tab'ıñ", your nature, repeated in three of the four lines, keeps the focus of the praise constantly in the same place.
The quatrain's main image is the mirror. The nature of the one praised is a polished mirror reflecting God's lights, and so bright that if even the smallest mote were reflected in it, it would appear like the sun. The frequent use of the mirror in the divan, from the ghazal "Âyîne Karşısında" to the idea of the mazhar, serves here to praise a person's inner world: a good nature magnifies the smallest light it receives and reflects it.
Bibliography
- Havva Tok Yıldız, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [1b-43a], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, p. 124 (poem no. 168; manuscript fol. ). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116853.pdf
Online sources
