Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: eight-syllable syllabic metre

Dalgam yeğin derya gibi
Bahri umman akar gider
Kıya bakmam eller gibi
Ay aleme bakar gider
Aydan ay olduğum derim
Yoluna kurban bu serim
Herhalde darılmış yârim
Kaşlarını yıkar gider
Kapı Hüseyin’in kaşta
Eksik değil birde beşte
Yazılısı arşta kürste
Dost zülfüne takar gider
Gökte yıldız zülfün teli
Sen eyledin beni deli
Güzelin erkânı yolu
Aşkı sine yakar gider
Kul Hüseyn’imin duası
Bağlandı umman ovası
Bin katarda bir devesi
İleriye çeker gider

In English

1. My wave is mighty as the sea; the boundless ocean flows on and goes. I do not look askance as others do; the moon looks upon the world and goes.

2. I say that I have become a moon from the moon; this head of mine is a sacrifice on your road. My beloved must surely be offended with me; she knits her brows and goes.

3. The door is in Hüseyin's brow; it lacks nothing among the one and the five. Its writing is on the Throne and on the Seat; it is caught in the Friend's lock of hair and goes (this reading of the quatrain is approximate).

4. The star in the sky is a strand of your hair; it was you who drove me mad. The rite and the road of the beauty become love, burn the breast and go.

5. The prayer of Kul Hüseyin is bound to the plain of the ocean; one camel in a caravan of a thousand pulls ahead and goes.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The five quatrains all end on the redif "gider" (goes), and the verb before it changes every time: "akar, bakar, yıkar, takar, yakar, çeker" (flows, looks, knits, catches, burns, pulls). Işık classes the deyiş, built of short eight-syllable lines, as a güzelleme. In the first quatrain the first and third lines pair on the word "gibi" (like); in the later quatrains the first three lines make their own rhyme ("derim, serim, yârim", "kaşta, beşte, kürste", "teli, deli, yolu", "duası, ovası, devesi"). The pen name (mahlas) of the last quatrain takes the form "Kul Hüseyn'imin". The text was collected from Erdoğan Koç and Âşık Hasan Özabdal; Işık also cites pages 189-190 of Ali Cem Akbulut's 2010 book.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The poem is built around the images of the ocean and the sea. In the first quatrain the lover's exaltation is likened to a wave mighty as the sea, to the flow of the boundless ocean; the moon looks upon the world without looking askance and passes on. The second and fourth quatrains return to the patterns of the folk love poem: the lover sacrifices his head to the beloved, who knits her brows and goes; the stars in the sky are the strands of the beloved's hair.

The last quatrain is the one Işık also quotes separately when describing Kul Hüseyin's life; there the second line reads "Boyladı umman ovası" and the last "İleriye çekip gider". According to Işık, Kul Hüseyin speaks thus knowing the power and effect of his word and likens his task to the waves that lead the way in the sea of truth; the dervishes of the region tried to complete the wave he created. The image of the single camel walking ahead of a caravan of a thousand expresses the place of the saint who shows the way to a community. The meaning of the third quatrain is veiled; the source does not explain what "the door is in Hüseyin's brow" points to.

Bibliography

  • Caner Işık, "Gaziler Ovacığı'ndan Bir Eren; Kul Hüseyin'in Hayatı ve Deyişleri", Alevilik Araştırmaları Dergisi, no. 6, 2013, pp. 67-124 (deyiş no. 10, p. 82; quotation and comment p. 73). https://isamveri.org/pdfdrg/D04118/2013_6/2013_6_ISIKC.pdf
  • Ali Cem Akbulut, Gazilerovacığı Âşıkları, İstanbul: KaraMavi Yayınları, 2010, pp. 189-190 (as cited in Işık 2013).

Online sources