Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: eleven-syllable syllabic metre

Devredip de şu âlemde gezerken
Irast geldim bir örenin taşına
Dedim ören ne zamandan ıssızsın
Ne gelmiştir ne gelecek başına
Nuh Peygamber zamanından böyleyim
Emir Haktan geldi kime ne deyim
Başıma geleni bir bir söyleyim
Hele bir kez otur yanıbaşına
Ta ezelden coşkun akan sel idim
Şenliğim çok idi mamur büyüdüm
Olanca şenliğim habire huydum
Bakmıyon mu mihrabımın taşına
Dört lüleli pınarlarım akardı
Güzellerim seyrangaha çıkardı
Her hanemde bin bir deve ıhardı
Bakmaz mısın hanlarımın taşına
Çok yiğit şahbazım vardı bu evde
Kimi saz çalardı kimi güvende
Çok kızı da gelin ettim bu evde
Bakmaz mısın ela gözün yaşına
KUL HASAN’ım bunu böyle söyledi
İndi aşkın deryasını boyladı
Ören sana yolum nerden uğradı
Dayanamam firkatine coşuna

In English

1. As I wandered roaming this world, I came upon the stone of a ruin. I said: "O ruin, how long have you been deserted? What has befallen you, and what is yet to come?"

2. "I have been like this since the days of the Prophet Noah; the command came from God, what can I say to anyone? Let me tell you one by one what befell me; just sit for a while by my side."

3. "Since pre-eternity I was a torrent flowing in spate; my bustle was great, I grew up prosperous. All my bustle vanished at once (the line is not fully clear); do you not see the stone of my prayer niche?"

4. "My four-spouted fountains used to flow; my beauties went out to the pleasure grounds. In every one of my inns a thousand and one camels knelt; will you not look at the stones of my inns?"

5. "In this house I had many brave and splendid youths; some played the saz, some walked tall in their pride. In this house I gave many a daughter away as a bride; will you not look at the tears of the hazel eye?"

6. Kul Hasan spoke it thus and plunged into the sea of love: "O ruin, how did my road ever lead to you? I cannot bear your grief of separation and your surge."

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This is a koşma of six quatrains in the eleven-syllable metre (the syllable count is ours). The first quatrain has cross rhyme ("gezerken, ıssızsın"; "taşına, başına"); in the following quatrains the first three lines rhyme among themselves, while the fourth lines, "yanıbaşına, taşına, taşına, yaşına, coşuna", link back to the rhyme of the first quatrain. The deyiş is built as a dialogue: in the first quatrain the minstrel questions the ruin, from the second to the fifth the ruin speaks, and in the sixth and last quatrain the word passes back to the minstrel, where the pen name appears. The phrase "habire huydum" in the third line of the third quatrain stands so in the source and could not be understood with certainty.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The deyiş rests on the minstrel's question to a ruined place and the ruin's answer. The ruin describes itself as an old town or settlement deserted since the days of Noah: once it was lively like a torrent in spate, with its prayer niche, its four-spouted fountains and its inns where camels knelt. The youths who played the saz and the daughters given away as brides bring this bustle down to the scale of family and village life. After all these memories, the words "the command came from God" show that the ruin's fall is accepted as fate.

The poem tells of the transience of the world through the mouth of a ruin rather than through direct counsel. In the last quatrain the minstrel is moved by the ruin's words; "he plunged into the sea of love" says that he too lives this grief from within. Which place the ruin is the deyiş does not say, and the source gives no information on this; tying it to a particular place is not something we can do.

Bibliography

Online sources