Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilün

Coşdı göňlüm sel gibi çaġlar o yâriň semtine
Rûz u şeb muḥabbetim baġlar o yâriň semtine

In English

1. My heart has surged; like a flood it rushes toward that beloved; night and day my love binds (me) toward that beloved.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is recorded in the cönk as a ghazal (gazel). The ghazal is the aruz verse form whose opening couplet (matla) rhymes within itself and whose other couplets are tied to that rhyme; folk poets also used this form. Because Hakverdioğlu's article publishes only the first verse unit of each poem in the cönk, we know only the opening couplet of this poem. The refrain is "o yâriň semtine"; the rhyme is the "-ağlar" sound in "çaġlar / baġlar". The identification of the metre is ours; as is usual in the aruz poems of folk poets, some syllables may not fit the pattern exactly. To whom and on what occasion the poem was composed is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The couplet likens the surging heart to a flood. The flood, as an unstoppable flow, expresses the heart's turning toward the beloved; the verb "çağlamak" stands both for water rushing and roaring and for exuberance. In the second line "rûz u şeb", night and day, says that this turning never pauses, and the verb "bağlar" (binds) turns the image of the flood into a feeling of attachment. The refrain "o yâriň semtine", toward that beloved's side, gathers the whole movement of the couplet toward a single goal. The plain language of the couplet and rhymes close to popular speech such as "çağlar / bağlar" bring it close to the manner of folk poetry, though it is written in aruz.

Historical Context

The poem is recorded under the pen name "Firâkî" in the Merzifon Cönkü introduced by Metin Hakverdioğlu in 2019. This is the only poem with the pen name Firâkî in the cönk. Among the known poets who used this pen name is the sixteenth-century divan poet Firâkî of Kütahya; there is no record showing that the ghazal in the cönk is his. The article gives no information about the poet; the poet's identity and the century in which he lived have not been determined. Since the cönk is thought to have been compiled in Merzifon within the literary circle of Eyüb Sabrî, the poet may have been one read or living in that circle. For details, see the page on Firâkî. The poem is on page 108 of the cönk and page 551 of the article; its full text is in the cönk itself and has not been published to date.

Bibliography

Online sources