"Be wise, listen to what is said in company; if others speak twice, you speak once." These lines of advice come from the deyiş that Hüseyin Onkar sang for the collecting team of the Ankara State Conservatory in Merzifon on 7 July 1943. The team entered the recording in its list as "Sümmânî'den (Karacaoğlan)", "from Sümmânî (Karacaoğlan)", thereby tying the words to two different folk poets at once. The notation is Ateş Köyoğlu's; the work stands in the TRT repertoire as no. 1900, and the repertoire data class it as a deyiş, a minstrel's sung poem. The melody is one of only two among Amasya's TRT kırık havas that use the Gülizar scale.

Catalogue Data

  • Repertoire no.: TRT THM 1900, kırık hava; genre deyiş
  • Region: Amasya, Merzifon, Hayrettin village
  • Source performer: Hüseyin Onkar
  • Collected by: the Ankara State Conservatory
  • Collection date: 7 July 1943, Merzifon; title in the conservatory list "Sümmânî'den (Karacaoğlan)", disc 1120/B-2
  • Transcribed by: Ateş Köyoğlu
  • Mode: Gülizar scale; final and closing note La
  • Metre: 5/8
  • Words: the names of Sümmânî and Karacaoğlan on the collection slip; the notation names no author. Music: anonymous
  • TRT link: TRT repertoire no. 1900; as TRT has no online catalogue entry for individual works, see Repertükül for the notation data and lyrics

Lyrics

Of the two poets named as authors, Karacaoğlan, according to the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, lived no earlier than the 17th century, and Sümmânî died in 1915. The words are therefore not subject to copyright restrictions and are given in full as they stand in the repertoire.

Eğlen sana bir nasihat edeyim
Hatırdan gönülden geçici olma
Yiğidin başına bir hal gelince
Halin nadenlere açıcı olma
Arif ol meclisde kelamı dinle
El iki söylerse sen birin söyle
Elinden geldikçe sen eylik eyle
Darılıp da başa gakıcı olma
El arifdir gözedirler fendini
Dağıdırlar duzağını bendini
Alçaklara otur gözet kendini
Gatı yükseklerden uçucu olma

"Eğlen" here has its old sense of stop, wait; the speaker holds the listener for a moment to give him advice. The other old words are opened up by the notation's glossary: "naden" (nadan) is coarse, ignorant; "arif" wise and understanding; "kelam" speech; "başa kakmak" hurting someone by reminding them of a favour done; "fent" trickery, scheme; "bent" obstacle. In plain English the first stanza runs: wait, let me give you a piece of advice; do not be one who wounds anyone's feelings or heart. When some trouble befalls a brave man, do not lay his state open to coarse, unfeeling people.

The second stanza teaches how to bear oneself among others: be wise, listen to what is said in company, if others say two words you say one; do good as far as you can, and do not throw your kindness in someone's face because you have taken offence. The last stanza counsels caution: people are shrewd, they keep an eye on your tricks and schemes, they will break up your snare and your dam; sit in low places, watch yourself, do not try to fly too high. "Sit in low places" can be read as advice to humility; the line ends with the warning that whoever flies high will fall. In none of the three stanzas of the notation does the poet's pen name appear.

Story

The deyiş is a poem of counsel, and nothing is known of any particular event behind it; to whom and on what occasion it was said cannot be told from the words either. The double name on the collection slip raises another question: Hüseyin Onkar or the team tied the words both to Sümmânî and to Karacaoğlan. The catalogue does not explain why the two names were written together. As the notation lacks the stanza bearing a pen name, the authorship cannot be settled from the text; the catalogue data therefore do not mark the words as "anonymous", and the double attribution on the slip is reproduced as it stands.

Musical Features

The repertoire data name the scale as Gülizar, with La for final and close. The range spreads over nine notes, from the low Sol to the high La, one note beyond the octave. The metre is 5/8. In Nail Demircioğlu's table of Amasya's 48 TRT songs the Gülizar scale occurs twice; the other work is "Dağdan Kestim Çınarı". The 5/8 metre appears in five works in that table, and one of them is "Ben De Çıktım Fodullu'nun Üstüne", collected on the same day from the same source performer.

The language of advice rests on repetition: every stanza ends with the refrain word "olma", "do not be" (geçici olma, açıcı olma, gakıcı olma, uçucu olma), and the sounds "-ıcı", "-ici", "-ucu" before it carry the rhyme. This shape lets every stanza close on the same phrase in the melody. As the division of the first line shows (Eğ-len / sa-na / bir na-si-hat / e-de-yim), the lines are of eleven syllables.

Performers and Recordings

Beyond Hüseyin Onkar's 1943 disc there is no recording to hand; the online entry for the work carries no audio file either from the source performer or from present-day performers. Together with the sung exchange "Ben De Çıktım Fodullu'nun Üstüne", which Onkar sang on the same day and which stands in TRT as no. 1899, the two works are numbered one after the other in the repertoire. No evidence was found that the deyiş was later recorded on disc or album by other performers.

Collections and Variants

In the conservatory catalogue the place of recording is Merzifon without square brackets, written on the slip, and the first line reads "Eğlen sana bir nasîhat edeyim". Haluk Yücel's 2018 table of genres counts the work among the kırık havas with a spelling closer to local pronunciation, "E'len sana bir nasihat ideyim (Merzifon)". Yücel's table also has a separate work beginning "Sana bir nasihat edeyim gönül"; despite the similar title its first line differs, and there is no information that it is a variant of this deyiş. An overview of Amasya's deyiş and folk songs is given in The Melody of the Yeşilırmak.

Bibliography

Academic studies

Other sources

Online sources