Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Metre: Feʿilātün feʿilātün feʿilātün feʿilün
O namāzı ki ḳılar köyde Muḥammed kahyā
Vatiḳanda papanıñkinden eberr ü ezkā
Ṣırmalı ḳırmalı telli oyalı oymalıdır
Papazıñ cāme-i āyīni ne uʿcūbe-nümā
Müslimiñ bir alaca bezden olan ʿentarisi
Kāfiriñ cübbe-i dībāsına nisbet aʿlā
Bir ḳaranlıḳ vü derin naġme kilisalarda
Uzacaḳlarda ṣanırsın iñiler raʿd-ı semā
Baş açıḳ ṣaç ṭaġınıḳ elde gümüş micmereler
Irlaya ẓırlaya meydānda gezer ḳara belā
Bu iñilti bu parıltıyla ʿavām-ı kefere
Düşerek vehme ṣanır anları reht-i ʿİsā
Bu ne āyīn ne ʿibādet ne bu zünnār u ṣalīb
Bunı yapmış mı buyurmış mı Mesīḥā ʿacebā
Papaz evhām u ḫāyālatı tekāŝüf iderek
Böyle bir şekl-i ġarībe girüp olmış tersā
Dīn-i tersā denilen tersine bir āyīndir
Cümlesi mā-ḥuṣul-i hācise-i nefs ü hevā
Ḫalḳı aġvāde rehābīn ḫalfe-i şeyṭāndır
Şimdi şeyṭāna ne ḥācet ide ḫalḳı iġvā
In English
1. The prayer that Muhammed Kâhya performs in the village is better and purer than the prayer of the Pope in the Vatican.
2. The priest's ritual vestment is embroidered with gold thread, pleated, tinselled, laced and carved; how strange it looks.
3. The Muslim's robe of striped cloth is loftier than the unbeliever's silk gown.
4. In the churches a dark and deep chant; you would think the sky was thundering in the distance.
5. Bareheaded, hair dishevelled, silver censers in hand, a black calamity goes about the square, murmuring and droning.
6. With this moaning and this glitter the common folk of the unbelievers fall into fancy and take them for the company of Jesus.
7. What rite is this, what worship, what is this girdle and cross? Did the Messiah, I wonder, do this or command it?
8. Thickening fancies and imaginings, the priest has taken on such a strange shape and become a "tersâ" (Christian).
9. What is called the "tersâ" religion is a rite turned "ters" (upside down); all of it is the fruit of the whisperings of the self and desire.
10. In leading people astray the monks are Satan's deputies; what need is there now for Satan to lead people astray?
Literary and Historical Commentary
According to the title these ten couplets are a translation and addition made "tevsî'an", expansively, from Abu'l-Alâ al-Ma'arrî. Al-Ma'arrî's original is not given in the thesis, nor is it shown where the translation ends and the addition begins. The text is a harsh polemic comparing the outward show of a Christian rite with the plain prayer of a Muslim villager: the prayer Muhammed Kâhya performs in the village is purer than the Pope's in the Vatican, the Muslim's robe of striped cloth loftier than the priest's silk gown.
The poem's descriptions are vivid and carefully chosen. The priest's ritual vestment is described with a string of adjectives, "embroidered with gold thread, pleated, tinselled, laced and carved"; the deep chant in the church is likened to thunder coming from afar; priests going about bareheaded, hair dishevelled, silver censers in hand are depicted. The eighth and ninth couplets rest on a play of sound: the Persian word "tersâ", meaning Christian, is matched with the Turkish word "ters", upside down, and the "tersâ religion" is mocked as "a rite turned upside down".
The harshness of the polemic reflects the interreligious tensions of the period in which the poem was written and the outlook of a poet speaking in the language of the tradition. Yet al-Ma'arrî is known as a poet who looked on all religions with scepticism in his own poems; Cûdî's expanding his words by turning them in only one direction also shows that the translation is an interpretation and a choice.
Bibliography
- Havva Tok Yıldız, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [1b-43a], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, p. 88 (poem no. 62; manuscript fol. 29b-30a); introduction p. 8. http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116853.pdf
Online sources
