Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilün

Ben saňa göňül vireli bu cihânda gülmedim
Geçdi ‘ömrüm miḥnet ile bir ṣafâsın görmedim
Başıma bunca felâket geldi ben uṣlanmadım
Bed du‘â bilmem güzel Mevlâya ṣaldım ben seni

In English

1. Since I gave you my heart I have never laughed in this world; my life passed in hardship and I never saw a day of joy. So many calamities came upon me, yet I did not learn my lesson. My fair one, I do not know how to curse; I have left you to God.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The quatrain is the beginning of a divan recorded under the name Ömer on page 110 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 three lines are joined in the sound "-dım/-dim" in the words "gülmedim, görmedim, uslanmadım"; the fourth line, ending in "ben seni", stays outside this pattern. Whether this comes from a corruption in the cönk or from a scheme in which the last line of the stanza is sung on a different rhyme cannot be told from the first quatrain. The lines approach the pattern "fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilün"; the identification of the metre is ours.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The quatrain tells of the pain that love has spread over a whole life. In the first two lines the lover says that he has not laughed since the day he gave the beloved his heart and that his life has passed in hardship. The third line is a confession: although so many calamities have befallen him, he has not learned his lesson, that is, he has not given up loving. The last line is the most striking point of the stanza. The lover says he does not know how to curse the beloved and leaves her to the Mevlâ, to God. The saying "I have left you to God" is in popular speech both a reproach and an expression of patience that leaves one's due to God. So the stanza begins with a bitter complaint and ends in a wounded surrender. The address "güzel" (fair one) is directed at the beloved; the line can also be read as "güzel Mevlâ" (gracious God), but the flow of the expression makes it more fitting to link the address to the beloved. This assessment is ours.

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