Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: close to mefâîlün mefâîlün mefâîlün mefâîlün, common in semais; according to the editor there are irregularities of pattern

Ḥayâliňi bilen çoḳdur sırıňa olmasun âgâh
Görenler metḥiň eylesün ḳaşı siyâh gözi siyâh
Ḳuşatmış edirafıňa yeňi yıldız cemâl-i mâh
Bu bî-çâre Filib ḥüsnüň görüp didi maâşallah
Dudu dillim ince bellim ḳorḳaram ayrıluň benden

In English

1. Many know your image, but let no one learn your secret. Let those who see you praise you: black of brow, black of eye. New stars have gathered round your face, lovely as the moon. This helpless Filib saw your beauty and said "mashallah". My parrot-tongued, slender-waisted beauty, I fear that you will part from me. "Ayrıluň" in the last line is the article's reading; it has been understood in the sense of "that you may part" or "you will part".

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The five lines we have are taken from a poem on page 100 of the Merzifon Cönkü. Metin Hakverdioğlu defines the poem as a "semâ‘î-i müseddes", a semai built of six-line stanzas. The semai is a sung form of poetry which folk poets also composed in aruz. The stanza quoted has five lines; the first four rhyme in the sound "-âh" with "âgâh, siyâh, mâh, maâşallah", while the fifth ends in a different sound and stands like a refrain. That a six-line stanza has five lines suggests that one line has been left out of the quotation, and that the pen name occurs in the fourth line suggests that this may be the last stanza of the semai; both observations are ours. Hakverdioğlu notes that the poem has irregularities of metrical pattern and that these may be connected with a difference between open and closed syllables arising from the poet's probably non-Muslim accent. The spelling "edirafıňa" in the third line is the article's reading of the word "etrafına" (around you) and has been left unchanged.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The stanza describes the beloved's beauty in praise and the lover's state in humility. In the first line the beloved's "hayal", her image, is known to all, but her "sır", her secret, must be disclosed to no one; this contrast draws a line between visible beauty and a love that must stay hidden. In the second line the repetition "ḳaşı siyâh gözi siyâh", black of brow, black of eye, is a melodic praise close to folk speech. In the third line the beloved's face is likened to the moon and those around her to stars; this harmony of moon and stars is an example of tenasüp, congruence of images. In the fourth line the poet calls himself "bî-çâre", helpless, and says that on seeing the beloved he said "mashallah"; since this word is a prayer spoken to ward off the evil eye, it adds a protective warmth to the praise. The epithets in the fifth line, "dudu dilli", sweet-spoken like a parrot, and "ince belli", slender-waisted, are familiar elements of the folk portrait of the beloved.

Historical Context

Hakverdioğlu read the poet's name as "Filib", but, being uncertain, he counted the poem among the anonymous pieces. That Merzifon had a large non-Muslim population and that the divançe of Eyüp Sabrî of Merzifon contains a poem with the refrain "Ohannes" support the interpretation that the name may be Filip (Philip) and the poet a non-Muslim. In the source too this interpretation is offered as a possibility, and the poet's identity is unknown. What is known of the poet and of the uncertain reading is set out in the biography of Filib.

Bibliography

Online sources