Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilün

Cân u dilden mâ’il oldum bu ṣaçı Leylâya ben
Dili bülbül ṣaçı sünbül ḳaşları zafrâya ben
Gice gündüz ḥasretiňden ciğerim ḳan aġladı
Bir oňulmaz derde düşdüm uğradım ġavġâya ben

In English

1. With all my soul and heart I have inclined to this one whose hair is like Leylâ's, dark as night; to the one whose tongue is a nightingale, whose hair is a hyacinth, whose brows are (lovely). Night and day my heart has wept blood from longing for you; I have fallen into an incurable pain and met with trouble.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The quatrain is the beginning of the second divan recorded under the name Ömer on page 111 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 end in "-â-ya ben"; "ben" (I) is the redif and "Leylâ, zafrâ, gavgâ" the rhyme. The third line, ending in "ağladı", stands apart. The lines follow the pattern "fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilün"; the identification of the metre is ours. "Zafrâ" in the second line is the article's reading and its meaning is unclear; taking rhyme and sense together, a reading "zîbâ" (lovely) is possible. This reading is ours and is not certain.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The quatrain counts the beloved's beauties with traditional comparisons. The phrase "saçı Leylâ" carries two meanings together: Leylâ is the beloved of the story of Mecnun, and the same word is related to the Arabic "leyl", night. So the hair is named both as famous as Leylâ's and as dark as night. In the second line the beloved's tongue is likened to a nightingale and the hair to a hyacinth; the nightingale stands for sweet and fluent speech, the hyacinth for dark, curling hair. In the third line "the heart weeping blood" is one of the heaviest expressions of the pain of love. The last line ties the stanza to falling into an incurable pain and into trouble. Choosing the pronoun "ben" (I) as redif puts the lover himself forward in every line. The language is laden with Arabic and Persian compounds; this agrees with the assessments that Âşık Ömer's language grows heavy in his poems in aruz.

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