Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilün

İşde geldim yâ İlâhî baş açık dîvânıňa
Beni (……) itme el-amân ḥüsrânıňa

In English

1. Here I have come, O my God, bareheaded to Your court, Your divan; do not make me (……), have mercy, (do not consign me) to Your loss.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is recorded in the cönk as a ghazal (gazel). The ghazal is the aruz verse form whose opening couplet (matla) rhymes within itself and whose other couplets are tied to that rhyme; folk poets also used this form. 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 the dative suffix "-ıňa"; the rhyme is the "-ân" sound in "dîvânıňa / hüsrânıňa". 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 is the opening of a ghazal of repentance and supplication. Coming "baş açık", bareheaded, is in older society an expression of complete submission and helplessness; man has come to God's "dîvân", His presence, like a servant appearing before the sultan. The word divan here suggests both the divine court and the assembly of reckoning on the Day of Judgement. In the second line there is a word that was not read, or was left blank, in the article, marked "(……)"; in our rendering this place is left blank. The rest of the line shows the poet crying "el-amân", begging for mercy, so as not to be left in "hüsrân", loss and ruin.

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 16 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