Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mefâîlün mefâîlün mefâîlün mefâîlün

Sükür olsun vücûd iḳlîmime Rabbim şifâ verdi
Yatarken bî-mecâl ḥâlimde yekden bir devâ verdi

In English

1. Thanks be, my Lord has given healing to the clime of my body; as I lay in a helpless state, all at once He gave a cure.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is recorded in the cönk as an aruz semai. The semais minstrels composed in aruz are usually written in the pattern of four "mefâîlün" feet 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 "verdi"; the rhyme is the "-â" sound in "şifâ / devâ". 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 expresses thanks for recovery from an illness. "Vücûd iklimi", the clime of the body, thinks of the body as a country; illness has invaded this country, and healing has rescued it. The second line conveys the severity of the illness with the word "bî-mecâl", strengthless, and says that recovery came "yekden", all at once. In this respect the couplet looks like a poem tied to a particular event, the poet's or a relative's rising from a sickbed; but which event is not known. Directing the thanks straight to God gives the poem the air of a prayer.

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 18 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