Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: eleven-syllable syllabic metre

Benim yaralarım tevhit tevhittir
Şimdi bir derdimiz beş oldu gitti
Benim işim rehberlidir pirlidir
Hemen dertten derde düş oldu gitti
Umduğumuz dertte dermanım aldı
Arayıp dertlolan dermanın buldu
Derdim bak bir iken dört beş on oldu
Bin yıllık deliye iş oldu gitti
Hain kalleş safi emrin tutmadı
Hazreti Pir buyruğunu gütmedi
Taliplikten düştü kabul etmedi
Bal mumuyum diyen taş oldu gitti
Kul Hüseyin eydür pirim bir koca
Derdimi söylesem üç gün üç gece
Yolumuz uğradı boranlı güçe
Gözlediğim yazlar kış oldu gitti

In English

1. My wounds are oneness upon oneness; now one pain of ours has become five and gone on. My work is with a guide and with a pir; at once it fell from pain into pain and went on.

2. In the pain we hoped for, it took my cure; the one who suffers sought and found his cure. Look, my pain was one and has become four, five, ten; it has become work for the madman of a thousand years and gone on.

3. The traitor, the treacherous one did not keep the pure command; he did not heed the precepts of the holy Pir. He fell from his discipleship, he did not accept; the one who said "I am beeswax" has become stone and gone.

4. Kul Hüseyin says my pir is an old man; if I told my pain it would take three days and three nights. Our road has met a hardship full of blizzards; the summers I waited for have turned to winter and gone.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The redif speaks of something finished: lines two and four of the quatrains end "oldu gitti" (has become ... and gone) ("beş oldu gitti, düş oldu gitti, iş oldu gitti, taş oldu gitti, kış oldu gitti"). The rhymes of lines one and three are built on "tevhittir, pirlidir", "aldı, buldu, on oldu", "tutmadı, gütmedi, etmedi", "koca, gece, güce". The four quatrains are in the eleven-syllable syllabic metre; Işık counts the text as a güzelleme. In the final quatrain the pen name (mahlas) appears as "Kul Hüseyin". The text was collected from Halil Sezgin; the article glosses "dertlolan" as one who suffers. Another form of the deyiş has been published under Kul Hüseyin's name on a website collecting deyiş, citing Cahit Öztelli's book "Pir Sultan'ın Dostları"; there the first line reads "Benim yaralarım tevir tevirdir". Since more than one poet in Anatolia used the same pen name, this overlap calls for caution as regards attribution.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

This is the story of a pain that multiplies: one pain rises first to five, then to ten, and one falls from pain into pain. But this pain is not merely suffering; the poet says that his work is "with a guide, with a pir", that is, his pain comes from within the path and matures him. The second quatrain says that the one who suffers finds his cure within the pain; "the madman of a thousand years" describes the lover seized by love from eternity.

The third quatrain describes the seeker who turns back from the path: the traitor, the treacherous one, did not keep the pure command, did not heed the pir's precepts and fell from his discipleship. The line "the one who said 'I am beeswax' has become stone" conveys through a strong contrast how the one who claimed to be soft and pliant has hardened. In the last stanza the poet says that his pir is old and that three days and three nights would not suffice to tell his pain, and ends with the hardship of the road through an image of the seasons: the awaited summers have turned to winter.

Bibliography

Online sources