Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mefâîlün mefâîlün mefâîlün mefâîlün

Sa‘îd olsun efendim ‘abd-i mezîdin sa‘îd olsun
Bu dil şevḳinle ġamdan nâr-ı ḥasretden ba‘îd olsun

In English

1. May it be blessed, my lord, may (your feast) be blessed; may this heart, through your joy, be far from grief and from the fire of longing.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is recorded in the cönk as a güfte. A güfte is a song lyric written to be set to music; in cönks it is often recorded without the name of the mode (makam). 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 "olsun"; the rhyme is the "-'îd" sound in "sa'îd / ba'îd". 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 poem of congratulation, of good wishes. In the article's reading the phrase in the first line is "abd-i mezîdin"; this reading gives no clear sense. In view of the rhyme and refrain ("sa'îd / ba'îd olsun"), it is a strong possibility that the line is a feast-day greeting of the form "ıyd-ı mezîdin sa'îd olsun", "may your abundant, blessed feast be happy"; but this correction cannot be made without seeing the cönk itself. If this possibility is correct, the güfte is a song lyric offered to a superior or a beloved on the occasion of a religious feast. In the second line the poet wishes that, through the joy of the person he greets, his heart may stay far from grief and from "nâr-ı hasret", the fire of longing.

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 10 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