This is a deyiş of counsel: while the chance is in hand one should earn a good deed, for the rose-fresh face will fade and worldly goods will stay behind. Words and melody are by Ali Kaya Çelebi. Not part of the TRT repertoire, the work was notated from Çelebi's own singing during the Merzifon fieldwork and added to the archive under no. 2089. Explanations of two words are appended beneath the score.

Catalogue Data

  • Archive no.: Repertükül Archive 2089; not a TRT number
  • Region: Amasya, Merzifon
  • Genre: deyiş
  • Words and music: Ali Kaya Çelebi
  • Source performer: not stated; recorded from the composer
  • Collected and transcribed by: Erkan Demirtaş, Berkay Gençer
  • Date of collection: not written; under the CultureCIVIC Culture and Arts Support Programme, 2021 or later
  • Mode: Hüseyni scale; final and closing note La
  • Metre: 4/4
  • Source link: as there is no TRT counterpart, Repertükül Archive 2089

Lyrics

The stanzas on the Judgement and its scales are left out here: Ali Kaya Çelebi is a contemporary folk poet who gave the recording himself, and with copyright in mind only the first quatrain is reproduced. The whole of the four quatrains is on the score.

Fırsat elde iken bir amel kazan
Gül cemalin bir gün solsa gerektir
Aldanma zevkine bakma dünyaya
Dünya malı burda kalsa gerektir

Amel is a deed, here a good deed that earns merit; gül cemal is a face as fresh as a rose. The refrain word "gerektir", which returns at the end of every quatrain, expresses necessity: the face will fade, the goods will remain, everyone will meet what they have done. The later stanzas tell how the ignorant will not heed advice, then of the questions to be asked and the scales to be set up on the Day of Judgement. The glossary on the score explains "tamu" as hell and "ruz-ı mahşer" as the place of gathering on the day of reckoning; the last line says that heaven and hell are "true" and both will be filled. No pen name appears in the text.

Story

What the score provides amounts to the catalogue data, the words and a two-word glossary. Not a line among them concerns the occasion of the deyiş, and nothing has been found elsewhere.

Musical Features

In its catalogue data this melody has a twin: "Ahu Perçemine Kül Ettin Beni" from the same collection also moves in the Hüseyni scale within six notes, from La to Fa, in 4/4, settling on La and ending there. Identical in scale, final, range and metre, the two works nonetheless come from different composers.

Performers and Recordings

The only known performance is Ali Kaya Çelebi's, as notated. "Arzu Halim Var Pirime", for which Çelebi wrote the words and whose tune rests on an anonymous folk air, is in the same archive. No record, cassette or radio recording is documented. These Merzifon deyiş songs form a new layer, added in recent years, to the provincial repertoire mapped by The Melody of Yeşilırmak.

Bibliography

Online sources