Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: 11'li hece ölçüsü

İlâhî ẓulmete düşürüp yolum
Miḥnet-i dünyâyı bana (mı) virdiň
Dergâhıňda naṣıl baḥtı kem ḳulum
Cevr ile cefâyı bana (mı) virdiň

In English

1. My God, did You make my road fall into darkness and give the hardship of the world to me? What kind of ill-starred servant am I at Your threshold that You gave torment and cruelty to me as well?

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The quatrain is the beginning of a koşma on page 84 of the cönk. The lines have eleven syllables with a caesura after the sixth; the syllable count is ours. The second and fourth lines share the redif "bana mı virdiň" (did You give to me), while "mihnet-i dünyâ" and "cevr ile cefâ" carry the rhyme in the sound "-â". The first and third lines rhyme in "yolum" and "kulum". The particle "mı" in brackets was added in the article's reading and completes the syllable count.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The quatrain is a reproach addressed to God. This manner of speaking, which in folk poetry could be called a complaint to God, is a way of laying the weight of one's fate before God without crossing into rebellion. The redif in question form shows that the poet accepts what has befallen him while trying to understand why it was given to him. "Zulmet" means darkness, "mihnet" hardship and toil, and "cevr" and "cefâ" torment. "Dergâh" here is the threshold of God; the lover presents himself at that threshold as a servant whose luck is bad. All these words describe a person carrying the burden of fate. Dertli's life passed through poverty, exile and dismissal from office; according to the TDV article, the poet recalled the family he left in his village and his own misery in mournful language in his poems. A direct link between this stanza and that period is not documented, but the theme agrees with the poet's life.

Historical Context

The koşma is recorded under the name Dertli in the Merzifon Cönkü. Metin Hakverdioğlu, who published the cönk, counts Dertli among the well-known minstrels who stopped in Merzifon, which shows that he identifies the Dertli of the cönk with the nineteenth-century Dertli of Bolu. Since we could not compare the poem with the editions of Dertli's divan, the attribution rests on the record in the cönk. The poet's life and his link with Amasya are in the article Dertli.

Bibliography

Online sources