Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: eleven-syllable syllabic metre

Piri Baba ceddi sevgili yârim
Ehl-i Bey(i)tleri yastı da gitti
Gönlümün sevgisi cesette canım
İrakip lâdene küstü de gitti
Dayanılmaz şu feleğin kahrine
Rakip taş attı din serverine
Bu cihan umudu Hakkın yârine
Hakikat ilmini aştı da gitti
Kul Fakir sultanım ilimin başı
Başına gelenler sadıkan kişi
Ezel inanmayan gösterdi düşü
Kırklar meydanını aştı da gitti
Kırklar meydanında birinci safta
Aldı kamberini bütündür ahta
Gözlerim dostumu tükenmez hafta
Bindi burakına göçtü de gitti
Derviş Edna’m şu yaremin çaresi
Sene bin üç yüz otuz senesi
Dokuz ay on günde gelir sırası
Ananın rahmine düştü de gitti

In English

1. My beloved friend, whose ancestor is Pîrî Baba, kept the mourning of his Family of the Prophet and went. The love of my heart, the soul in my body, took offence at the rival and the rockrose and went (the meaning of the line is not entirely clear).

2. The wrath of this fate is past bearing; the rival threw stones at the leader of the faith. The hope of this world, the friend of God, passed beyond the knowledge of truth and went.

3. Kul Fakir, my sultan, is the head of knowledge; what befalls the faithful one is known. From eternity he showed the vision to the unbeliever; he passed beyond the square of the Forty and went.

4. In the first rank at the square of the Forty he took his Kamber, his pledge whole. My eyes await my friend with an unending longing; he mounted his Burak, moved on and went.

5. I am Derviş Edna; the cure of my wound is in the year one thousand three hundred and thirty; in nine months and ten days his turn comes. He fell into his mother's womb and went.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This nefes contains a date: the article explains the year "one thousand three hundred and thirty" as 1911-1912, though it does not state the genre of the poem. The last line of every quatrain ends with the redif "gitti" (went), preceded by the rhyme "yastı da, küstü de, aştı da, göçtü de, düştü de". The first three lines rhyme as "kahrine, serverine, yârine", "başı, kişi, düşü", "safta, ahta, hafta", "çaresi, senesi, sırası". The metre of the five quatrains is the eleven-syllable syllabic measure, and the pen name (mahlas) appears in the closing quatrain as "Derviş Edna'm". The article glosses "laden" as the name of a plant. The nefes also appears on a website collecting deyiş, where the second line reads "Ehl-i Beytleri yastı da gitti".

Meaning and Figures of Speech

This is a narrative of separation and departure, but it does not say plainly who has gone. The first quatrain speaks of a "beloved friend" whose ancestor is Pîrî Baba. The Pîrî Baba ocak of Merzifon is the lineage to which Kul Fakir belonged; in the third quatrain Kul Fakir is named as "my sultan, the head of knowledge". Kul Fakir, however, died in 1938, ten years after Derviş Edna, so the poem cannot have been composed on his death. The source does not explain for whom the poem was composed.

The last quatrain opens the poem to another meaning. The lines "in nine months and ten days his turn comes, he fell into his mother's womb and went" can be read together with the belief in changing garments that appears often in Derviş Edna's deyiş: the soul that departs falls, when its turn comes, into a mother's womb again. In that case passing beyond the square of the Forty, mounting the Burak and falling into the womb become stages of a journey from death to rebirth; this reading of the whole is ours. The year 1330 corresponds, according to the article, to 1911-1912 and shows that the event took place at that date.

Bibliography

Online sources