Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mefâîlün mefâîlün mefâîlün mefâîlün

Bahâr eyyâmı da gülşende feryâd-ı hezâr eyler
Döker yaşın gözünden rûz u şeb çoḳ âh u zâr eyler
O mesken kendüye güyâ o bâg-ı kâm-dâr eyler
Cigerden âh ider dâ’im ḥisâbın bî-şümâr eyler
Yeşil destâr içinden ġonce bir ḫoş âşikâr eyler
Görünce bülbül-i şeydâ figânı iḫtiyâr eyler

In English

1. In the days of spring the nightingale cries out in the rose garden; night and day it sheds tears from its eyes and sighs and moans much. That place, as though it were the garden of its desire, it takes for its dwelling; it ever sighs from its very liver, and its reckoning (of sighs) is beyond counting. From within a green turban (of leaves) a lovely bud reveals itself; seeing it, the frenzied nightingale chooses lament.

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 first stanza of this poem. All six lines rhyme on the "-âr" sound in "hezâr / zâr / kâm-dâr / bî-şümâr / âşikâr / ihtiyâr"; "eyler" is the refrain. 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

This six-line stanza is a descriptive piece built on spring and the nightingale, and all its lines have the refrain "eyler" (does, makes). The first four lines describe the nightingale's state: it weeps night and day, makes the rose garden its home, sighs from the very liver. The last two lines give the stanza's liveliest image: the "yeşil destâr", the green turban, describes the leaves wrapping the bud, and the bud reveals itself from within this turban. The green turban also recalls the turban worn by sayyids (descendants of the Prophet) and pilgrims; the image from nature is thus enriched by a detail from daily life. Though the subject of the stanza is the nightingale, in the tradition the nightingale stands for the lover and the bud for the beloved. The reading "eyyâmı da" in the first line follows the article.

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 13 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