Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: 11-syllable syllabic metre

Sevdâ-yı ‘aşḳıňla ṭolanayım mı
Böyle ḳalb-i maḥzûn dîdeleri yaş
Ateş-i hicriňle çoḳ yanayım mı
Raḥm eyle ḥâlime gel ey baġrı ṭaş

In English

1. Shall I wander about in the passion of your love like this, with a grieving heart and tearful eyes? Shall I burn still longer in the fire of your absence? O stone-hearted one, have pity on my state and come.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The quatrain is the first stanza of a koşma recorded under the name Gedâyî on page 91 of the Merzifon Cönkü. Because Metin Hakverdioğlu gives only the first unit of each poem, the number of stanzas and the pen-name stanza are not known; the whole poem is in the cönk. The lines have eleven syllables each and follow the 6+5 caesura most common in folk poetry; the syllable count is ours. The first and third lines rhyme in "ṭolanayım mı" and "yanayım mı", and the second and fourth in "yaş" and "ṭaş". In koşmas it is usually the second and fourth lines of the first stanza that rhyme; here the first and third lines also rhyme with each other, which gives the quatrain a tight pattern of sound.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The two questioning lines of the quatrain ask how long the lover's condition is to last, and find their answer in the plea of the last line. The word "sevda" means both love and the passion of that love that sends one wandering; "ṭolanmak" describes the lover circling about the beloved or roaming aimlessly. The grieving heart and the tearful eyes are familiar signs of love's pain. "Ateş-i hicr", the fire of separation, in the third line, is a phrase that passed from divan poetry into folk poetry. The idiom "bağrı taş", stone-breasted, in the last line expresses the beloved's mercilessness through the hardness of stone; the rhyme of "yaş" (tears) and "taş" (stone) also makes it felt at the level of sound that the lover's tears do not soften the beloved's stony heart.

Historical Context

Who Gedâyî was is not certain. Since the cönk contains many poems by Erzurumlu Emrah and his apprentice Tokatlı Nûrî, it is plausible that this Gedâyî is Emrah's other famous apprentice, Tokatlı (Beşiktaşlı) Gedâî; this identification is ours and is not in the source. What is known about the poet's identity is discussed in the biography of Gedâyî.

Bibliography

Online sources