Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: 11-syllable syllabic metre

Ziynet-i dünyâya meyil mi virem
Aldadır âdemi dünyâ naḳışı
Vefâsızdır (gidip) gülün mi derem
Ḥuẓurında vardır onuň oynaşı

In English

1. Shall I give my heart to the finery of the world? The world's embroidery deceives man. The world is faithless; shall I go and pick its rose? Beside it, in its very presence, it keeps another paramour, a secret lover.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The quatrain is the first stanza of the koşma on page 113 of the Merzifon Cönkü. The rest of the koşma is unpublished. The lines have eleven syllables each; the word "(gidip)" in the third line is given in parentheses in Metin Hakverdioğlu's reading, which shows that it is a word the editor supplied or was unsure of. With this word the line reaches eleven syllables. The first and third lines rhyme in "virem" and "derem", the second and fourth in "naḳışı" and "oynaşı". Forms such as "virem" and "derem" are the optative of Old Anatolian Turkish and of folk speech, meaning "let me give" and "let me pick".

Meaning and Figures of Speech

Whereas Fethî's other koşmas are about love, this one is a warning against the world. The world is depicted as a faithless lover who deceives man with her finery and embroidery. The words "ziynet" (finery) and "nakış" (embroidery) describe the world's outward beauty, a surface that dazzles like an embroidered cloth yet deceives. In the third line "picking the rose" of this lover means approaching her and enjoying her favours. In the fourth line the comparison reaches a plain verdict: in the world's presence there is an "oynaş", a secret lover; whoever gives his heart to it is bound to a lover who betrays him. Likening the world to a faithless woman, or to one with many husbands, is a common pattern of counsel in Turkish folk and Sufi poetry. The comparison is a clear example of personification (teşhis).

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