Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilün

Derd-i ġamdan dehrde bir kere âzâd olmadım
Günlerim ekdâr ile hep geçdi âbâd olmadım

In English

1. In this world I have not once been free of the pain of grief; my days have all passed in sorrow, I have never (once) been glad.

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 "olmadım"; the rhyme is the "-âd" sound in "âzâd / âbâd". 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 describes a sorrow spread over the whole of life. The words "bir kere" (once) and "hep" (always) set the scope of the two lines: the lover has not once escaped grief, his days have always passed in sorrow. The words "âzâd" and "âbâd" are close in sound: one expresses freedom, the other prosperity and gladness. Their use in negative form says that the lover could be neither free nor happy. "Ekdâr", sorrows, is the plural of the Arabic word "keder". The language of the couplet is plain and suits the slow, plaintive mood of the dîvân form as sung with the saz.

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 12 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