Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mefâîlün mefâîlün mefâîlün mefâîlün (hezec; identification of the metre is ours)

İşitdim dilber-i ra‘nâ bugünlerde kederlenmiş
Baňa cevr ü cefâ efzûn idüp her dem hünerlenmiş
Seniň destiňden ey dilber eḥaḳ âdem degerlenmiş
Seni görmek içün şâhım raḳîbler hep siperlenmiş
Yanaġıň çevresi dilber siyâh beňler biberlenmiş
Bana emdirmediň ẓâlim beyâż gerdân şekerlenmiş

In English

1. I have heard that the graceful beloved has been grieving these days. She has increased the torment and cruelty she inflicts on me and grown more skilled at it every moment. O beauty, at your hand even the most deserving man has found his worth (the line may also be read ironically: "because of you even the most rightful man has got what he deserved"). My shah, the rivals have all formed a barricade before those who would see you, and have barred my way. O beauty, the black moles around your cheek are sprinkled like pepper. Cruel one, you did not let me kiss, did not let me taste, that white neck sweet as sugar.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The six lines we have are the first stanza of a müseddes recorded under the name Bezmî on page 82 of the Merzifon Cönkü. The müseddes is a verse form built of six-line stanzas; it is also often used in the semais that folk poets composed in aruz. Because Metin Hakverdioğlu gives only the first unit of each poem in the cönk, the number of stanzas and the final stanza with the pen name are not known; the full poem remains unpublished in the cönk. All six lines of the first stanza end in the sound "-erlenmiş": kederlenmiş, hünerlenmiş, degerlenmiş, siperlenmiş, biberlenmiş, şekerlenmiş. Here "-lenmiş" is the redif and "-er" the rhyme. The metre is not stated in the source; the lines fit the mefâîlün mefâîlün mefâîlün mefâîlün pattern of aruz, an identification that is ours. The spelling "Bana" in the sixth line, which differs from "Baňa" in the other lines, is left as it appears in the article.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The stanza brings together the familiar figures of classical love poetry in a lively scene: the grieving and cruel beloved, the lover trying to see her and the rivals who hold the road. The word "siperlenmiş" presents the rivals as soldiers who have dug in between lover and beloved, a metaphor (istiare) drawn from the language of war. In the fifth line the moles on the beloved's cheek are said to be "peppered". In divan poetry the beauty spot is usually compared to dark and precious things such as musk or a Hindu; here the kitchen image of pepper carries the everyday, playful flavour typical of folk poetry. In the last line the white neck is "sugared", which sets sweet against the pepper of the line before, a pleasing example of antithesis (tezat). The third line is obscure: "eḥaḳ" means most worthy or most rightful, and the line can be read as praise, that at the beloved's hand even the worthiest man gains value, or as reproach, that even the most rightful man has received his due.

Historical Context

Who Bezmî was is not certain. The weight of Tokatlı Nûrî in the cönk, and the fact that all three of the poets Nûrî conversed with in Çankırı, Zahmî, Bezmî and Yesârî, have poems in it, suggest that this Bezmî may be Âşık Bezmî of Çankırı, who lived in the second half of the nineteenth century; this identification is ours and is not in the source. The semai air of the stanza and its everyday images suit the manner of a saz poet who also composed in aruz. What is known about the poet's identity, together with the Bezmîs of Merzifon and Amasya in Hüsameddin, is discussed in the biography of Bezmî.

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