Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Metre: Mefʿūlü mefāʿīlü mefāʿīlü feʿūl
Ḫālıḳ var iken itmeli mi ḫalḳa penāh
Gördüm çoġunuñ oldı penā-gāhı tebāh
In English
1. Should one take refuge with people while the Creator exists? I have seen that the refuge of most has fallen into ruin.
Literary and Historical Commentary
This single couplet, set among the quatrains, is a two-line saying of wisdom written in the rubai metre. In the divan tradition couplets spoken on their own are called "müfred"; there are several examples of this among the quatrains in Cûdî's divan. The couplet is built of a question and an observation: is it right to take refuge with created beings while the Creator exists? The answer comes from experience: of those who take refuge with people, the refuge of most has collapsed.
"Hâlık" and "halk", the Creator and the created, are two words from the same root, and the first line uses this closeness of sound. The words "penâ-gâh", refuge, and "tebâh", ruined, in the second line also tell a short story: the support on which man leaned has fallen. Coming from a poet who spent his life among circles of politics and officialdom and served as a deputy, this observation can also be read as a personal conclusion resting on his own witness; the couplet, however, says it as a general counsel.
Bibliography
- Havva Tok Yıldız, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [1b-43a], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, p. 99 (poem no. 82; manuscript fol. ). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116853.pdf
Online sources
