Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mef'ûlü mefâîlü mefâîlü feûlün

Meclîsde bu şeb ṭûti semendân bana düşdi
Sehmimde şeker ruḥları elvân bana düşdi

In English

1. Tonight in the gathering the (talking) parrot fell to my lot; sugar-cheeked, many-coloured (beauties) fell to my share.

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 "bana düşdi"; the rhyme is the "-ân" sound in "semendân / elvân". 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 an evening gathering and gives the poem an air of festivity. The "tûtî", the parrot, is in divan poetry the symbol of the talking, sweet-tongued beloved or of the poet; the belief that the parrot loves sugar also finds an echo in this couplet in the word "şeker" (sugar). The lover says that in the gathering that night the parrot, that is, a sweet-tongued beauty, fell to his share. "Sehm" in the second line means share or portion, and "elvân", many-coloured, expresses the variety of the beauties. The reading and meaning of the word "semendân" in the first line are uncertain; a reading connected with "şeker-dân" (sugar bowl) would agree with the images of "tûtî" and "şeker", but this is a guess.

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 15 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