Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: eight-syllable syllabic metre

Bu gün ben bir şarı gördüm
Çevre yanı nura benzer
Hayli hikmetine erdim
Bin canı var bire benzer
Bir can ile aşna oldum
Açtım kapısına baktım
Üç yüz altmış altı tahtın
Her tarafı yola benzer
Yolun birin tuttum gittim
Şarın bekçisine yettim
Dört kapı ve yedi tahtın
Alt tarafı göle benzer
Dört kapıdır bunun başı
Bu ne imiş içi dışı
Kırka erdi on ik’yaşı
Fil cümlesi nura benzer
Derviş Edna’m böyle gezdim
Cümlesin âdemde sezdim
Mayam turap anam kızdır
Bilinmezse zora benzer

In English

1. Today I saw a city; its surroundings are like light. I came to know much of its wisdom; it has a thousand souls, and they are like one.

2. I became acquainted with a soul; I opened its door and looked. Every side of its three hundred and sixty-six thrones is like a road.

3. I took one of its roads and went, and reached the watchman of the city. It has four gates and seven thrones; its lower part is like a lake.

4. Its head is four gates; what are its inside and its outside. It has reached forty, its age is twelve; all its works are like light (the line can be read in two ways; "fil" has been taken as "fiil", deed).

5. I, Derviş Edna, wandered thus; I perceived all of it in the human being. My substance is earth, my mother is a girl; if it is not understood, it seems a hard thing.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

In the eight-syllable lines the likeness has settled into the redif: in the first quatrain the even-numbered lines end "nura benzer, bire benzer", and the odd-numbered lines half-rhyme on "gördüm, erdim". In the later quatrains the first three lines rhyme with one another ("oldum, baktım, tahtın", "gittim, yettim, tahtın", "başı, dışı, yaşı", "gezdim, sezdim, kızdır"), and the fourth line closes on "-a benzer". The nefes has five quatrains. The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last quatrain as "Derviş Edna'm". The article glosses "şar" as fortress and "aşna" as acquainted.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

It is built like a riddle. The dervish sees a city of light, opens its door, takes one of its roads and reaches its watchman, and counts its four gates, its seven thrones and the lake beneath it. The last quatrain gives the answer to the riddle: "I perceived all of it in the human being". The structure described as a city or fortress is the human being. The idea that man is a small universe, that the cosmos is summed up in man, is widespread in Sufi poetry; Derviş Edna expresses it through a concrete journey that ordinary people could follow.

The numbers too come from Alevi-Bektashi symbolism. The four gates are the gates of the law, the order, gnosis and truth. Forty recalls the Forty (Kırklar), twelve the Twelve Imams. The number three hundred and sixty-six is often cited in folk belief as the number of veins in the human body; the poem does not say plainly what the number stands for, and this connection is our interpretation. The line "my substance is earth, my mother is a girl" sets side by side man's creation from earth and his coming into the world from a mother; the last word of the riddle is that if this secret is not understood, it is hard to solve.

Bibliography

Online sources