Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: eleven-syllable syllabic metre

Aşkın cemalin çıkmaz serimden
Pare pare etseler ayrılmam senden
Ayırma sevdiğim bizi bu demden
Canım kurban olsun yoluna dilber
Ya nice sevmeyim böyle dilberi
Sıdk ile severim sevdiğim yari
Ay ile gün gibi hüsnü cemali
Ezelden hayranım nuruna dilber
Kaşların bismillah levhi kudret
Gözlerin velleyli nuru hidayet
Elheme esmasın vücudun ayet
Cihanda erilmez sırrına dilber
Dost bakışlı aslan pençeli
Yaralı kalbime vurdun hançeri
İlikten kemikten kandan içeri
Bari ihsan eyle kuluna dilber
KULFAKIR’ım sızlar yürek yaresi
Dostun dosta kavuşmanın sırası
Sultanım elinde derdim çaresi
Ezelden yanarım narına dilber

In English

1. The beautiful face of your love does not leave my head; even if they tore me to pieces I would not part from you. My beloved, do not part us from this moment, from this communion; O beauty, may my life be sacrificed on your path.

2. How should I not love such a beauty; I love my beloved with sincere devotion. The loveliness of your face is like the moon and the sun; O beauty, since eternity I have been in awe of your light.

3. Your brows are the basmala, the tablet of divine power; your eyes are the sura "wa'l-layl" (By the Night) and the light of guidance. The third line is unclear: it seems to say that the Fatiha and the names of God are invoked, that your body is a verse. O beauty, in this world none can attain your secret.

4. Beauty with a friend's glance and a lion's claw, you drove a dagger into my wounded heart; it went in through the marrow, the bone and the blood. O beauty, at least show some grace to your servant.

5. I am Kul Fakır, the wound of my heart aches; the time has come for the friend to be united with the friend. My sultan, the cure for my pain is in your hands; O beauty, since eternity I have burned in your fire.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The deyiş is a koşma of five quatrains. The last line of each quatrain ends with the word "dilber" (beauty, beloved), which serves as the redif; the words before it, "yoluna, nuruna, sırrına, kuluna, narına", form the rhyme. In each quatrain the first three lines rhyme among themselves: "serimden, senden, demden", "dilberi, yari, cemali" and so on. The metre is in general the eleven-syllable syllabic metre, but four lines depart from it: the first line and the first line of the third quatrain have ten syllables, the second line twelve and the first line of the fourth quatrain nine. Some of these differences, which are smoothed over in singing by lengthening and shortening syllables, may also be due to a word dropping out in transmission. The syllable count is ours. The pen name appears in the last quatrain. When the deyiş was sung is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The deyiş is framed as though addressed to a beloved, but "dilber" here is the true Beloved of Sufi poetry, that is, God. Fatih Çelebi reads the deyiş in this way: in the line "Dost bakışlı aslan pençeli" he sees God's power and the poet's trust in Him, and in "Bari ihsan eyle kuluna dilber" the voice of a servant asking God for grace. The phrase "lion-clawed" also recalls the epithet "Lion of God" given to Ali in Alevi-Bektashi poetry; this connection is our interpretation.

The third quatrain uses an image frequent in Bektashi poetry: the face of the beloved is like a page of the Qur'an to be read. The brows are likened to the basmala and the tablet of divine power, the eyes to the sura Layl and the light of guidance. The image rests on the view that man is God's book to be read, and it occurs in other deyiş of Kul Fakir's as well. In the fourth quatrain love is a dagger wound that reaches to the marrow, bone and blood; this is a familiar hyperbole in folk poetry expressing that the pain of love penetrates to the depths of the body.

Çelebi reads the line "Dostun dosta kavuşmanın sırası" in the last quatrain as saying that the day of union with God has come, and links the poet's calling himself a friend to his seeing himself as a faithful servant. The phrase "Ezelden yanarım narına" also says that this love began before he came into the world, in pre-eternity.

Bibliography

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