Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: eight-syllable syllabic metre

Şaha doğru giden kervan
Çok ağlattın güldür beni
Düşmüşem elden ayaktan
Tut elimden kaldır beni
Tut elimden ferman eyle
Gel bu derde derman eyle
Götür yare kurban eyle
Öldür derse öldür beni
Arıydım baldan ayrıldım
Ne şirin dilden ayrıldım
Bülbüldüm gülden ayrıldım
Gülistana kondur beni
Tut elimden düşmeyeyim
Doğru yoldan şaşmayayım
Derdim çoktur deşmeyeyim
Böyle şaha bildir beni
Yandı KULFAKIR’ın bağrı
Derde tay olmuyor ağrı
Çek katarı şaha doğru
Eli süre indir beni

In English

1. Caravan going towards the Şah, you have made me weep much, now make me laugh. I have lost the use of hand and foot; take my hand, raise me up.

2. Take my hand, give your command; come, be a cure for this pain. Take me to the beloved, make me a sacrifice; if he says kill, then kill me.

3. I was a bee, I was parted from the honey; I was parted from that sweet tongue. I was a nightingale, I was parted from the rose; set me down in the rose garden.

4. Take my hand so that I do not fall; so that I do not stray from the right path. My pains are many, let me not open them up; make me known to such a Şah.

5. Kul Fakır's breast has burned; the ache is no match for the pain. Draw the string of camels towards the Şah. The last line is unclear; it can be read as meaning: let me rub my face on the Şah's threshold and set me down there.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The deyiş is a semai of five quatrains in the eight-syllable syllabic metre. The last line of each quatrain ends with the redif "beni" (me); the imperative verbs before the redif, "güldür, kaldır, öldür, kondur, bildir, indir", form the rhyme. In the following quatrains the first three lines rhyme among themselves: the redif "eyle", the redif "ayrıldım", "düşmeyeyim, şaşmayayım, deşmeyeyim" and "bağrı, ağrı, doğru". The imperative mood running through the whole poem gives the deyiş the air of a plea from beginning to end. The syllable count is ours. The pen name appears in the last quatrain.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The deyiş opens by addressing a caravan travelling towards the Şah. In Alevi-Bektashi poetry the "Şah" is usually Ali, though the same word is also given to the other great figures of the path; the poem does not say plainly where this caravan is going. The âşık asks the caravan to take him along too, to take his hand and raise him, to make him a sacrifice to the beloved. The line "Öldür derse öldür beni" (if he says kill, then kill me) expresses complete surrender to the spiritual guide and the beloved.

The third quatrain is the best-known part of the deyiş. İsa Çolaker, quoting this quatrain, writes that the âşık expresses his longing for the Ehl-i Beyt: for the poet, who likens himself to a bee parted from the source that fed it and a nightingale parted from its rose, the honey is the path of the Ehl-i Beyt and of the Muslims, and the rose garden the martyrs of Karbala and Hüseyin in paradise. The images of bee and honey, nightingale and rose are familiar images of Sufi poetry expressing the soul's separation from the true homeland from which it came.

The line "Eli süre indir beni" in the last quatrain is not clear in the form given in the source. It may be read as a variant of the idiom "yüz sürmek" (to rub one's face, in reverence), or it may have been corrupted in transmission; its meaning has therefore been given with caution.

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