Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mefʿūlü mefāʿilün feʿūlün

Ḳahrıñdan amān içün ilāhī
Kuhsāra çıḳup biḥāra itdim
Gördüm ki diyor cibāl ü deryā
Ḳahrıñdan amān amān efendim
Bir ḫayli düşündüm ey birāder
Ṭāliʿ ne dimek ḳader ne maʿnā
İdrākı degil bize müyesser
Bunlar iki ḥalli güç muʿammā
Taḳdīr ü ḳaderle baḫt u ṭāliʿ
Bunlar baña ḳalsa ʿayn-ı şeydir
Bir neşve içün hezār-ı māyiʿ
Mahiyyeti hepsiniñ de meydir
Olsaydı felekde bir nişāne
Dostumdaki tīr-i iʿtirāża
Gitmezdi bu āhlar yabāna
Düşmezdi göñül bu inḳıbāża
Ṭāliʿ eŝer-i meşiyyetulllāh
Andan kime itmeli şikāyet
Lākin sıḳılınca nefs-i gümrāh
Eyler bu taẓalluma cesāret
Taḳdīre nüfūsdur meṭāliʿ
Āfāḳ daḫı aña meşārıḳ
Meşrıḳler ider mi daḫl-ı ṭāliʿ
Enfüsde bu ḥāl-i nā-muvāfıḳ
Teslīmde ṣanma yoḳ mükāfāt
Merdāne ŝebāt-ı fażlı vardır
Feryād ile defʿ olur mı āfāt
Taʿrīżiñ aña ne daḫli vardır
Āl dīde-i ʿibrete Ḥüseyni
Baḳ melek-i Murtażā ne ḫoşdur
Ḫalḳıñ ki rıżā ḳażāya dīnī
Bu dīnden imtināʿ boşdur
İnsān ki taṣavvurunda ḥürdür
Zevḳince ḫayāl ider cihānı
Ḫāricde görür ki ṭuʿmı mürdür
Ṣıbyān gibi ḳaldırır fiġānı
Baḳ ben de seniñ gibi ḳarışdım
Yoḳ çāre bu yolda izdiḥāma
Küsdüm ḳadere yine barışdım
Ben geldim o gelmedi merāma
Farż it ki şu ʿilm-i ḥavādiŝ
Āzāde-i pençe-i ḳaderdir
Bir ḥāl-i diger olur ki ḥādiŝ
Ẓannım o daḫı ḳader ḳadardır
İdrākımı mest ider şu deryā
Mestāne temevvüciyle her dem
Hep anda nihān hep anda peydā
Bārān u tegerg ü berf ü şebnem

In English

1. My God, to find refuge from Your wrath I climbed the mountains and went to the seas; I saw that the mountains and the sea were saying: "Mercy from Your wrath, mercy, my Lord!"

2. Brother, I have thought a great deal: what does fortune mean, what is the sense of destiny? Grasping them is not granted to us; these are two riddles hard to solve.

3. Decree and destiny, luck and fortune, to my mind these are one and the same thing; for one elation there are a thousand drinks; the essence of all of them is wine.

4. If there were a target in the heavens for the arrow of objection in my friend, these sighs would not go astray, the heart would not fall into this gloom.

5. Fortune is the work of God's will; to whom then should one complain? But when the errant self is distressed it ventures on this complaint.

6. The rising-places of fortune are the selves; the horizons too are its easts. Do the easts meddle with fortune? This unfitting state lies within the selves.

7. Do not think there is no reward in submission; there is the virtue of manly steadfastness. Are calamities driven off by crying out? What has objection to do with it?

8. Take Hüseyin before the eye of warning; see how fine is the way of Murtazâ. For people whose religion is consent to destiny, shunning this religion is vain.

9. Man, who is free in his imagining, imagines the world to his liking; outside he sees that its taste is bitter, and like children he raises a cry.

10. Look, I too was caught up like you; there is no help for the crowding on this road. I was cross with destiny, then made peace again; I came round, but it did not come round to my wish.

11. Suppose that the knowledge of events were free from the claw of destiny; another state would come about that is new, and I think that too would be as much as destiny.

12. This sea intoxicates my understanding with its drunken surging at every moment; rain and hail and snow and dew, all hidden in it, all appear from it.

Literary and Historical Commentary

The one named in the title as "Hazret-i Murtazâ" is 'Alî; the Arabic divan and kıtas ascribed to him were among the texts well known to the Ottoman reader. The Arabic original of the kıta Cûdî translates is not given in the divan, nor does the thesis identify it. The first quatrain is a scene of flight: to be saved from wrath one goes to the mountains and the seas, but the mountains and the sea too beg mercy from the same wrath. There is no place to flee from God's power.

Then come eleven quatrains under the sub-heading "Teslîm-i tâli' yâhud tesellî-i nâfi'", submission to fortune or a useful consolation, which widen the thought of the translation into a debate on destiny. The poet grants that fortune and destiny are two unsolvable riddles, but ties them all to a single essence: just as the essence of a thousand kinds of drink is wine, so decree, destiny, luck and fortune are one and the same thing. The sixth quatrain takes fortune from the stars and places it inside man: the rising-place of fortune is the self, not the horizons. In the eighth quatrain the way of Hüseyin and 'Alî is named as the example of submission.

The tenth quatrain carries the poet's own confession: "I was cross with destiny, then made peace again." The line "Ben geldim, o gelmedi merâma", I came round, but it did not come round to my wish, tells in a plain folk turn of phrase of a man who has consented to destiny and still does not attain his wish. In the last quatrain the sea, as a being that hides within it rain, hail, snow and dew and shows them all, becomes the image of all events issuing from a single source. The metre mef'ûlü mefâ'ilün fe'ûlün and the quatrains with crossed rhyme give this philosophical subject the air of a conversation.

Bibliography

  • Zeynep Adıyahşi, Merzifonlu İbrâhîm Cûdî Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük) [43b-87b], Master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun 2017, pp. 33-35 (poem no. 190; manuscript fol. 47b-48a-48b-49a). http://libra.omu.edu.tr/tezler/116831.pdf

Online sources