Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilün

Acıyın dostlar benim gül yüzlü yârim aldılar
Nice ḳan aġlamayayım çeşm-i siyâhım aldılar
Nice bu ḫûnî ḥarâmî taňrıdan ḥavf eylemez
El urup ḥançer ṭaḳılan ṭoġrı şâhım aldılar

In English

1. Have pity, friends: they have taken my rose-faced beloved. How should I not weep blood? They have taken my black-eyed one. How is it that these bloodthirsty robbers have no fear of God? Laying hands on him, they have taken my upright king who wore a dagger at his belt.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The quatrain is the beginning of a divan recorded under the name Ömer on page 99 of the cönk. In folk poetry the divan is a form sung in quatrains in aruz, usually in the pattern "fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilün"; it spread among minstrels from the seventeenth century on, and Âşık Ömer was one of its most prolific representatives. The first, second and fourth lines share the redif "aldılar" (they have taken); "yârim, siyâhım, şâhım" carry the rhyme in the sound "-ım". The third line ends apart, in "eylemez". The lines follow the pattern "fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilün"; the identification of the metre is ours.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The quatrain is the cry of one whose beloved has been taken from him, and it opens with an appeal to friends. The beloved is called rose-faced, black-eyed and an "upright king"; the epithet "hançer takılan" (wearing a dagger) suggests a young man with a dagger at his belt. Those who took him are accused as "hûnî harâmî", bloodthirsty highwaymen. Whether the poem is a love poem or a lament sung on a separation or a death cannot be told from this stanza alone. The "taking" of the beloved is an expression that can describe both separation and death in divan and minstrel poetry. The image of robbers and the charge of not fearing God suggest that the event may have been a real loss, but there is no information showing for whom it was sung. According to the TEİS article Âşık Ömer also wrote elegies, and the event mentioned in one of them took place, according to Şükrü Elçin, in 1711; the relation of this stanza to that poem is unknown.

Historical Context

The poem is recorded in the Merzifon Cönkü under the pen name Ömer. Metin Hakverdioğlu refers the Ömer of the cönk to Şükrü Elçin's book Âşık Ömer, published in 1987, and so identifies him with the great minstrel poet of the seventeenth century. The Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü notes that Âşık Ömer's poems have become mixed with those of other poets using the pen name Ömer; since we could not compare the poem with the editions of Ergun or Elçin, the attribution rests on the record in the cönk. The poet's life is in the article Âşık Ömer.

Bibliography

Academic studies

Official sources

  • Şükrü Elçin, Âşık Ömer, Ankara: Kültür Bakanlığı Yayınları, 1987 (as cited by Hakverdioğlu 2019).

Books

Online sources