Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: eleven-syllable syllabic metre

Gelsin yanımıza arz eden canlar
Birlik makamında deme bakalım
Rah-ı tarikatta alak senalar
Sınık gönüllere eme bakalım
Gönül arzusunu buldu sevdiğim
Farz ile vacibi kıldı sevdiğim
Senin güler yüzün n’oldu sevdiğim
Birlik makamında ceme bakalım
DERVİŞOĞLU dosta eder nazını
Bulur meydanında çalar sazını
Bırakamam sevdiğimin izini
Bırakıp da gayrı kime bakalım

In English

1. Let the souls who offer their greeting come to our side; let us look to this moment in the station of unity. You who offer high praise on the way of the order, let us look to the salve for broken hearts.

2. My beloved has found the heart's desire; my beloved has fulfilled both the obligatory and the necessary duties. My beloved, what has become of that smiling face of yours? Let us look to our cem in the station of unity.

3. Dervişoğlu shows his fond pride to the Friend; he finds his meydan and plays his saz. I cannot leave the trace of my beloved; if I left it, to whom else should we look?

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This is a short koşma of three quatrains in the eleven-syllable metre (the syllable count is ours). The first quatrain has cross rhyme: "canlar" rhymes with "senalar", and "deme" with "eme". In the second and third quatrains the first three lines rhyme among themselves (in the second the word "sevdiğim" is repeated as a redif), while the fourth lines, "ceme bakalım" and "kime bakalım", tie back to the first quatrain. The pen name appears in the last quatrain. The phrase "alak senalar" in the third line of the first quatrain stands so in the source; it should most probably be read as "âlâ senalar" (high praises), and our rendering rests on that reading.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The deyiş is a call to the cem. The "souls who offer their greeting" are the companions who come to the meydan of the cem and bow; the "station of unity" is the cem itself, the place where, in Alevi-Bektashi belief, all are one and duality falls away. The word "dem" suggests both the moment and the cup of fellowship that passes round in the cem. In the line "Sınık gönüllere eme bakalım", "em" means medicine or salve; the cem is seen as the place where broken hearts are mended.

In the second quatrain the beloved is addressed. The minstrel says his beloved has fulfilled the obligatory and necessary duties, asks where that smiling face has gone, and again turns the words towards the cem. Here the beloved can also be read as the guide at the head of the cem or as the path itself. In the last quatrain the minstrel appears like a zakir who plays his saz once he finds the meydan; his "fond pride" towards the Friend expresses intimacy, and "the trace of my beloved" his resolve never to leave the path.

Bibliography

Academic studies

Books

  • Ali Cem Akbulut, Gazilerovacığı Âşıkları, Istanbul: KaraMavi Yayınları, 2010; text: "Dervişoğlu", Alevi Deyişleri Nefesler Hakk Âşıkları, 21 August 2019, poem no. 2. https://www.deyisler-nefesler.com/dervisoglu/

Online sources