Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: eleven-syllable syllabic metre

Çağrışa çağrışa havada turna
Bağdat’tan mı geldin ağzında hurma
Emanetim sana sılama uğra
Eğlen turnam eğlen pire gidelim
Al(i)’nin çağırdığı yere varalım
Hasan’la Hüseyin’e gönül verelim
On(i)ki İmamlara yüzler sürelim
Eğlen turnam eğlen pire gidelim
Kerbela çölünden yeni mi geldin
Ne yaman ötersin bağrımı deldin
Sende benim gibi yetim mi kaldın
Eğlen turnam eğlen pire gidelim
Kul Hüseyin der ki kaynadı coştu
Bu aşkın elinden serinden geçti
Çağrışa çağrışa sahralar aştı
Eğlen turnam eğlen pire gidelim

In English

1. Crane flying in the air with your calling cries, have you come from Baghdad with a date in your beak. Let this be my trust with you, stop by my homeland; tarry, my crane, tarry, let us go to the pir.

2. Let us go where Ali calls us, let us give our hearts to Hasan and Hüseyin, let us lay our faces before the Twelve Imams; tarry, my crane, tarry, let us go to the pir.

3. Have you just come from the desert of Karbala; how terribly you sing, you have pierced my breast. Have you too been left an orphan like me; tarry, my crane, tarry, let us go to the pir.

4. Kul Hüseyin says: he boiled up and surged; at the hand of this love he gave up his head. Calling and crying he crossed the deserts; tarry, my crane, tarry, let us go to the pir.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This crane song was collected and sung by Zülfü Livaneli; Işık records the fact and classes the text as a semah. Each of the four quatrains ends on the refrain "Eğlen turnam eğlen pire gidelim" (tarry, my crane, tarry, let us go to the pir), and the first three lines rhyme thus: "turna, hurma, uğra", "varalım, verelim, sürelim", "geldin, deldin, kaldın", "coştu, geçti, aştı". The metre is the eleven-syllable syllabic measure, and at one point it strains the wording: Işık notes that the first line of the second quatrain is read "Al'nin" to fit the metre, while in meaning the word is properly "Ali'nin". The poet appears in the closing quatrain under his pen name (mahlas), "Kul Hüseyin". The text rests on the accounts of Erdoğan Koç and Halil Sezgin; Işık also cites the Gümüşhacıköy book of Ankaralı, Cin and Tuncay.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The semah is the ritual genre of Alevi cem worship sung to the saz and performed while turning; crane semahs are among the best-known examples of this tradition. In Alevi-Bektashi poetry the crane is a sacred bird that brings news and mediates between distant lands and the heart. In Kul Hüseyin's deyiş the crane comes from Baghdad with a date in its beak; Baghdad and Karbala are places remembered with longing in Alevi poetry because of Imam Hüseyin's martyrdom and the tombs of the imams.

The deyiş sees the crane both as a messenger and as a fellow traveller. The poet asks it to stop by his homeland, then, saying "tarry, let us go to the pir", makes it part of his own journey. The second quatrain lists the stations of this journey: the place where Ali calls, giving one's heart to Hasan and Hüseyin, laying one's face before the Twelve Imams. The line in the third quatrain, "have you too been left an orphan like me", recalls the orphans of Karbala and may also touch, according to the accounts Işık collected, Kul Hüseyin's own life, since he lost his parents at an early age; this connection is our interpretation.

Bibliography

Online sources