The quatrains of this eight-stanza text are not linked to one another by subject: it opens with the complaint of someone who cannot cross the river, passes by Amasya's apples, keşkek and bubbling samovars, and ends with a heart that cannot bear a girl's coquetry. With lines mostly of seven syllables and stanzas rhyming on the first, second and fourth lines, each quatrain is built like a separate mani, the short folk quatrain. The text gathering these quatrains under a single title appears on a folk-song website with its region given as Amasya and its author as anonymous; from whom it was collected and to what melody it was sung are not stated.

Catalogue Data

  • Repertoire no.: none; not registered in the TRT repertoire under the Amasya region
  • Region: Amasya
  • Form: a series of manis in eight quatrains
  • Source performer, collector, date of collection: not shown
  • Mode (makam), metre: unknown
  • Words and music: anonymous
  • Links: no TRT link; the words are on Türkü Yurdu

Lyrics

Irmaktan geçemiyom
Az doludur içemiyom
Üç beş dostu görünce
Yazmadan edemiyom

Amasya'nın elması
Hoştur yari sarması
Kadehle olmaz bu iş
Doldur bu bakır tası

İşkefen pek yumuşak
Gerdanın pamuktan ak
Ne haldeyim bir bilsen
Çöz hırkam sineme bak

Yoğurdunu çaldın mı
Selamını aldın mı
Şu benim feryadımı
Seni hiç kaale aldın mı

Helkeciler boş geliyor
Sesin birhoş geliyor
Ulan domuzun kızı
Gözün taşı deliyor

Keşkeği vur fırına
Pişiversin yarına
Yalnız yeme sevdiğim
Haber sal dostlarına

Irmakta çimen güzel
Düşüme giren güzel
Ya mendil salla
Ya el Hakcası yanıma gel

Semaverler kaynasın
Gençler simsim oynasın
A kız senin cilvene
Bu can nasıl dayansın

Two readings are possible for the second line of the first quatrain: "az" may mean ağız, mouth, in the local speech (my mouth is full, I cannot drink), or it may mean the water is low, only full of something; the text does not settle this. The rest of the quatrain is clear: when I see a few friends, I cannot help writing, that is, saying these words. The second quatrain names Amasya's apples: embracing the beloved is sweet, this cannot be done with a wine glass, fill the copper bowl. A "helke" is a copper pail for carrying water; as the women with pails come back empty, the beloved's voice sounds sweet and her eye pierces stone. The keşkek quatrain asks that the meal be shared with friends. The published text leaves "işkefen" in the third quatrain, "Hakcası" in the seventh and "simsim" in the last unexplained; the third line of the seventh quatrain is also shorter than the others.

Story

Nothing recorded ties the words to a particular event, and since independent manis have been gathered under one title, a single story of origin would be hard to look for anyway.

Musical Features

No notation or metre accompanies the text, so the tune it was sung to is unknown. The syllable count varies here and there: most lines have seven syllables, but "Seni hiç kaale aldın mı" has nine and "Ya mendil salla" five. How the melody accommodates these differences cannot be known without notation. The rhyme of the first quatrain, which gives the title, is built on the local pronunciation "geçemiyom, içemiyom, edemiyom".

Collections and Variants

Two quatrains of the series open with lines that Haluk Yücel lists as titles of separate works among his eighty-nine. The type table lists "Amasya'nın elması" twice, on two rows, each time as a kırık hava; the metre table puts both rows in its nine-beat column. "Keşkeği vur fırına" is a kırık hava in 4/4. Since Yücel does not give the words of these titles, it cannot be determined whether the works he counts are the same as these quatrains; the two works have pages of their own, Amasya'nın Elması and Keşkeği Vur Fırına. "Samâveri hâlleyleyin", in the same list, also names the samovar; its title is not the same as the line that opens the closing quatrain here, and no link has been established between the two texts.

Performers and Recordings

The series is published without a performer's name, and no singer, disc or radio recording connected with it has turned up. The rest of the region's repertoire is surveyed in broad strokes under the title The Melody of Yeşilırmak.

Bibliography

Online sources