Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: 11-syllable syllabic metre

Ṭâ ṭıfıldan berü ey gül-i ra‘nâ
Bülbülüm gülşeni gözler gözlerim
Dünya güzel olsa baḳmazam aṣlâ
Sevdigim cinânı gözler gözlerim

In English

1. O lovely rose, I have been a nightingale since childhood, and my eyes watch for the rose garden. However beautiful the world may be, I never look at it; my love, my eyes watch only for the gardens of paradise.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a koşma. The koşma is the most common verse form of minstrel poetry; it is built of quatrains and usually sung in an eleven-syllable metre. The lines have a caesura after 6+5 or 4+4+3 syllables; the syllable count is ours. Because Hakverdioğlu's article publishes only the first verse unit of each poem in the cönk, we know only the first quatrain of this poem. The first and third lines rhyme in "ra'nâ / aslâ", the second and fourth in "gülşeni / cinânı"; "gözler gözlerim" is the refrain (redif). To whom and on what occasion the poem was composed is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The quatrain is built on the best-known pairing of minstrel poetry, the rose and the nightingale. The lover has counted himself a nightingale since childhood; the beloved is the "gül-i ra'nâ", the bright and graceful rose. The refrain "gözler gözlerim" sets two words from the same root side by side: my eyes watch, that is, wait and keep vigil. This repetition is a sound play much loved in folk poetry and gives the quatrain a memorable closing line. The image of a lover who does not look at the world and keeps his eyes on "cinân", the gardens of paradise, creates a chain of comparison that equates the beloved with the garden and the garden with paradise. Whether "cinân" points to the beloved or to the gardens of the hereafter is left open; both readings suit the mood of the quatrain.

Historical Context

The poem is recorded under the name of Erzurumlu Emrah in the Merzifon Cönkü, a manuscript miscellany held in Metin Hakverdioğlu's own library and introduced by him in 2019. The cönk contains eleven of Emrah's poems, three in syllabic metre and eight in aruz. In cönks and miscellanies Emrah's poems have become mixed with those of Ercişli Emrah and of his apprentice Tokatlı Nûrî; the record in the cönk is therefore not by itself conclusive proof of authorship. For the poet's connection with Merzifon and his other poems in the cönk, see the page on Erzurumlu Emrah. The poem is on page 38 of the cönk and page 546-547 of the article; its full text is in the cönk itself and has not been published to date.

Bibliography

Online sources