Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: 11-syllable syllabic metre

Bir lebleri ra‘nâ geldi yanıma
İtdi ḥâtemini bergüzâr baňa
İnṣaf eyle dilber geriye ḳalma
İtdigin cefâlar yeter kâr baňa

In English

1. A beloved with lovely lips came to my side and left me her ring as a keepsake. O beauty, be fair, do not hold back, do not stay away from me. The torments you have dealt me are enough; the last line can also be read as "even the torments you make me suffer count as gain for me".

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The quatrain is the first stanza of a koşma recorded under the name Fethî on page 92 of the Merzifon Cönkü; it is Fethî's first poem in the cönk and stands apart from his other four koşmas, directly after Gedâyî's koşmas. Because Metin Hakverdioğlu gives only the first unit of each poem, the rest of the koşma and the pen-name stanza are not known. The lines have eleven syllables each. The second and fourth lines end in "bergüzâr baňa" and "kâr baňa": "baňa" (to me) is the refrain and "-âr" the rhyme. There is also a partial echo of sound between "yanıma" and "ḳalma" in the first and third lines.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The quatrain opens with a small story: the beloved has come to the lover's side and left him her ring as a "bergüzâr", a keepsake. In folk poetry keepsakes such as a ring, a handkerchief or a headscarf are signs of a promise between lovers; here too the ring stands like a pledge of faithfulness. The third and fourth lines, however, tell that after this closeness the beloved again holds aloof. The phrase "geriye kalma" carries both the sense of staying behind and of drawing back. The expression "yeter kâr" in the last line points two ways: it may be a reproach, "the torment I have suffered is enough", or, in line with the divan idea that the beloved's cruelty is a favour to the lover, a surrender, "your torments are gain to me". This ambiguity lets the quatrain carry reproach and love together.

Historical Context

Nothing is known of Fethî's life. Metin Hakverdioğlu believes that he was a Merzifon poet and that it is highly likely he compiled the cönk; the main ground for this view is that in two of his koşmas the poet addresses a beauty named Gülfadik in "Şehr-i Merzifon". Since the cönk is estimated to be about a hundred years old, Fethî probably lived in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; this too is not a firm date but a conclusion drawn from the estimated age of the cönk. What is known of the poet and of the cönk is set out in the biography of Fethî.

Bibliography

Online sources