Filib is a poet whose name occurs in the lines of a semai in the Merzifon Cönkü, a manuscript compiled in Merzifon, and whose reading Metin Hakverdioğlu could not be sure of. Hakverdioğlu read the name as "Filib" from its form in Arabic script, but, being uncertain, he counted the poem among the anonymous poems of the cönk. Since Merzifon was a place with a large non-Muslim population, he thinks that the name may be Filip (Philip) and that the poet may have been a non-Muslim. There is no record of who the poet was, when he lived or whether he wrote other poems. The article states that the cönk contains 32 poets, but 31 different names can be counted in the headings of the poems; giving the 32nd place to Filib and treating him as a separate poet is our own choice.

His Place in the Merzifon Cönkü

The Merzifon Cönkü is a poetry notebook which Metin Hakverdioğlu acquired from a bookseller as coming from Merzifon and keeps in his own library; neither its compiler nor its date is written in it. Hakverdioğlu considers it about a hundred years old; it contains 161 poems by 32 poets, with folk and divan poetry represented in almost equal measure. The poet with the most poems is Tokatlı Nûrî. Hakverdioğlu believes the notebook was put together in the literary circle of Eyüp Sabrî of Merzifon, probably by a local poet using the pen name Fethî. His article publishes only the first stanza or couplet of each poem in the cönk; the full texts remain unpublished in the cönk.

Filib's poem is on page 100 of the cönk. Hakverdioğlu does not give it in the section listing the poets of the cönk; he mentions it in the introductory part as "one of the points awaiting solution" and quotes its stanza. He also notes separately that the cönk contains six poems whose poets could not be identified because the pen-name part is missing. Filib's connection with Amasya rests on his poem being in this notebook compiled in Merzifon and on Hakverdioğlu's interpretation linking him with the non-Muslim population of Merzifon.

The Possibility of a Non-Muslim Poet

Hakverdioğlu's interpretation rests on two observations. The first concerns the metre of the poem: in the piece, which he defines as a semai-i müseddes, there are places that do not fit the aruz pattern, and Hakverdioğlu attributes them to open and closed syllables being pronounced differently, probably because of a non-Muslim accent. The second concerns the literary circle of Merzifon: a large non-Muslim population lived in the town, and in the divançe of Eyüp Sabrî of Merzifon, whose poems are given ample room in the cönk, there is, according to the text published by Orhan Bilgin, a poem with the refrain "Ohannes". Hakverdioğlu says these two points may support his reading of the name as Filib. In the source too this is presented as a possibility. That Armenian and Greek poets composed poetry in Turkish, even in aruz, during the Ottoman period is well known; but there is no direct information on who Filib was or to which community he belonged.

His Poetry

The five lines quoted by Hakverdioğlu begin with the line "Ḥayâliňi bilen çoḳdur sırıňa olmasun âgâh". The beloved's black brow and black eye are praised, new stars are said to surround her moon-like face, and in the fourth line the poet names himself: "Bu bî-çâre Filib ḥüsnüň görüp didi maâşallah", this poor Filib saw your beauty and said mashallah. The fifth line, "Dudu dillim ince bellim ḳorḳaram ayrıluň benden", stands like a refrain voicing the fear of separation. That the pen name occurs in this stanza suggests that the stanza quoted may be the last rather than the first of the semai; that five lines are given for a six-line müseddes also shows that a line is missing. These are our own observations. The stanza is given on a separate poem page in the poet's category, with the uncertainty of the reading and of the attribution noted.

The State of the Sources and Discussion

Everything known about Filib rests on a few sentences and five lines in Hakverdioğlu's article. The reading of the name is considered doubtful by the editor himself; the same letters could also be read in other ways. The possibility of a non-Muslim poet is a reasonable interpretation but not a document. The difference between the article's figure of 32 poets and the 31 names in the headings of the poems cannot be explained with certainty either; that Filib is the poet who closes this gap is our own suggestion. When page images or the full text of the cönk are published, both the reading of the name and the poem as a whole will rest on firmer ground.

Bibliography

  • Metin Hakverdioğlu, "Merzifon Cönkü", idil, 8(57), 2019, pp. 543-558 (text on p. 546, Cönk, p. 100). doi: 10.7816/idil-08-57-02. https://www.idildergisi.com/makale/pdf/1552911669.pdf
  • Orhan Bilgin, Merzifonlu İki Şair: Eyüp Sabrî, Hıfzî, Istanbul: Enderun Kitabevi, 1992, p. 44 (as cited by Hakverdioğlu 2019).

Online sources