Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mefâîlün mefâîlün mefâîlün mefâîlün

Esîr etdi dil-i dîvânesin gîsûların câna
Ne ẓâlimdür o çeşm ü ġamze-i cadûların cânâ

In English

1. O soul, your tresses have taken the mad heart captive; O soul, how cruel are those eyes and your sorcerous glances.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is recorded in the cönk as a "dîvân" or "dîvânî". In minstrel literature this name is given to poems composed in aruz, in couplets like the ghazal, and sung to the saz. Because Hakverdioğlu's article publishes only the first verse unit of each poem in the cönk, we know only the opening couplet of this poem. The refrain is "cânâ"; the rhyme is the "-ûların" sound in "gîsûların / câdûların". The identification of the metre is ours; as is usual in the aruz poems of folk poets, some syllables may not fit the pattern exactly. To whom and on what occasion the poem was composed is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The couplet counts two known weapons of the beloved's beauty: hair and eye. In the first line the "gîsû", the long tresses, take the mad heart captive; hair binding the lover like a chain or snare is one of the basic conceits of divan poetry. In the second line the eye and the "gamze", the languid sidelong glance, are called "câdû", sorcerous. The beloved's glance taking hold of one like a spell and wounding cruelly is an example of the tradition's linking of the gamze with the arrow, the dagger or magic. The word "câna" at the end of the first line is given thus in the article; considering that the refrain is "cânâ", this spelling may be a typesetting difference.

Historical Context

The poem is recorded under the pen name "Ârif" in the Merzifon Cönkü introduced by Metin Hakverdioğlu in 2019. The cönk contains eleven aruz poems by Ârif: güftes, dîvâns, a ghazal and a semai. Ârif is the poet whose güftes are given most space in the cönk. The article gives no information about the poet; the poet's identity and the century in which he lived have not been determined. Since the cönk is thought to have been compiled in Merzifon within the literary circle of Eyüb Sabrî, the poet may have been one read or living in that circle. For details, see the page on Ârif. The poem is on page 11 of the cönk and page 551 of the article; its full text is in the cönk itself and has not been published to date.

Bibliography

Online sources