Among the works that Fatih Koca collected from Hacı Asiye Akbaş and published in notation, this mersiye, an elegy, is the only piece whose words are attributed to a poet: on the left of the score's heading stands "Güfte: Şah Hatayi", lyrics by Shah Hatayi, and just beneath it "Beste: Anonim", music anonymous. Set in the Hüseynî makam, it calls those martyred at Karbala "Mother Fatma's lambs" and binds every stanza to the names of Hasan and Hüseyin. In the article's list of collected pieces it was entered seventh, as "Hüseynî Mersiye, Kerbelâ". The other ten titles in the list are hymns (ilahi) and a lullaby; this is the only elegy.

Catalogue Data

  • Repertoire no.: none; not in the TRT Turkish folk music repertoire
  • Type: mersiye (score heading "Hüseyni Mersiye - Kerbela")
  • Region: Amasya (town centre)
  • Source performer: Hacı Asiye Akbaş (b. 1951 in Çiviköy, mevlid reciter), with her elder sister Ayşe Candaş
  • Collected by: Osman Akbaş and Fatih Koca
  • Transcribed by: the ney player Eren Köksal, who revised the collected material
  • Date of collection: not given in the article; Koca's interview with Akbaş is dated to the Ramadan Bayram of 2013
  • Mode (makam): Hüseynî
  • Metre and tempo: 3/4, crotchet = 60
  • Words and music: lyrics by Shah Hatâyî (altered in oral tradition, according to the footnote), music anonymous
  • Source publication: Koca 2015, list of works p. 937, score p. 945 (the same page is repeated on p. 946)
  • Link: no TRT link; online text of the article

Lyrics

Kerbelanın yazıları Şehit düşmüş gazileri
Fatma ana kuzuları Hasan ile Hüseyinim
Kerbelaya uğrayalım Kanlı ciğer doğrayalım
Yana yana ağlayalım Hasan ile Hüseyinim
Şah Hüseyin attan düştü O yezidler kanın içti
Zalim düşman kanın içti Hasan ile Hüseyinin

Hatâyî is the pen name that the Safavid ruler Shah Ismail (1487-1524) used in his poems; the words are therefore out of copyright, and all three stanzas printed beneath the score are given here. The footnote on the score states that the original text belongs to Hatâyî and was changed in oral tradition. The printed text has no stanza containing the pen name.

The word "yazı" in the first line can be understood in two ways. In Old Turkish and in Anatolian dialects one of its meanings is open country, a flat plain; read this way the line becomes "the warriors martyred on the plains of Karbala". The sense of fate cannot be ruled out either, but the rest of the stanza stays closer to the plain, that is, to the place of battle. "Mother Fatma's lambs" are the sons of Fâtıma, Hasan and Hüseyin. The second stanza calls to mourning: let us stop at Karbala, let us cut our livers into bloody pieces, let us weep as we burn. "Cutting one's liver" here expresses the deepest grief. The last stanza tells of Hüseyin falling from his horse and of Yazid's men drinking his blood; here the refrain line is printed as "Hüseyinin" rather than "Hüseyinim", and so reads "the cruel enemy drank the blood of Hasan and Hüseyin".

Story

The elegy has no story of composition of its own; its subject is the killing of Hüseyin and those with him at Karbala. What is documented is an indirect piece of information about the text's use in Amasya. As Koca relates, Akbaş chose the works she would recite at mevlid gatherings according to the occasion: the words of the hymns sung for a birth, a death, a soldier's mevlid, a bride's mevlid, seeing off pilgrims to Mecca or welcoming them back were suited to that gathering. At which of these "Kerbelâ" was sung is not recorded in the article. No comparison has been made to show how Hatâyî's text changed on its way to Akbaş.

Musical Features

The score is only eight bars long and lies entirely within a repeat sign. The first four bars carry the first line of the stanza, the next four the second; the melody of the two halves is identical note for note. The tune starts on Mi and, stepping down one degree with each bar, comes to rest on La. The whole melody fits within the five notes between La and Mi and never goes beyond them. The tempo marking of 60 crotchets a minute makes it, together with the "Hicaz Ninni", one of the two slowest pieces among the scores in the appendix. The same score is printed twice, on consecutive pages of the journal.

Performers and Recordings

The elegy was sung for the collection by Asiye Akbaş together with her elder sister Ayşe Candaş. Born in Çiviköy, in the Gediksaray sub-district then attached to Göynücek, Akbaş became known in Amasya as a reciter of the mevlid and of the Qur'an at home gatherings, and as a washer of the dead, a task she first performed at the age of fourteen. The article does not say where the field recording is kept. No information was found about a recording by another performer or a release on an album. The religious and secular melodies of the city together are the subject of the general article The Melody of Yeşilırmak.

Bibliography

Online sources