Three of the four words of the line that reached the card carry the signs the collectors used to put the local pronunciation onto paper: "Hagiygat rahine eréyim derseñ". This mersiye, sung by Kazım Aygül in Gümüşhacıköy on 9 July 1943, addresses whoever wishes to reach the path of truth. For whom, or for what event, it was sung cannot be told from this single line; the rest of the text has not entered any publication.

Catalogue Data

  • Repertoire no.: none; not registered under the Amasya region in the TRT repertoire
  • Source person: Kazım Aygül (saz; born Rumi 1318, i.e. 1902-1903; farmhand; Gümüşhacıköy, village of Halas)
  • Place and date of collection: Gümüşhacıköy, 9 July 1943
  • Collected by: Halil Bedii Yönetken, Muzaffer Sarısözen and the technician Rıza Yetişen (Ankara State Conservatory)
  • Genre: mersiye (elegy)
  • Mode, rhythm: not recorded
  • Words and music: registered as anonymous
  • Location in the archive: Folklore Archive, disc 1134/B-1
  • Source publication and link: Kaya's catalogue, no. 3707; full text of the thesis. There is no TRT link

Lyrics

Hagiygat rahine eréyim derseñ

In English: "If you say, let me reach the path of truth." "Rah" is Persian for "road" or "path". One thing should be kept in mind when reading details such as "gy", "é" and "ñ": Kaya states that, of the signs Muzaffer Sarısözen devised for local speech in the first collection of 1937, he replaced those not found among computer characters with close equivalents. The notation of the mersiye has not been printed either. The sound itself is first on side B of disc 1134.

Story

The card is content to name the genre of the piece as "mersiye"; it does not say from whom Aygül learned it or at which gatherings in Gümüşhacıköy it was sung. Published sources hold no story of its making or local account either.

Musical Features

Its mode and metre are not recorded. Side A of the disc is filled from start to finish by Bektaş Yıldız's "Gırklar Zamahı"; Aygül's mersiye opens side B and is followed by his own "Meyrem Oyunu" and "Parçalı". Thus a mersiye, a dance and a song fall side by side on the same face. That Aygül played his saz in the recordings can be seen from the list of performers; whether he sang the mersiye with or without the saz the card does not state separately.

Performers and Recordings

We know the mersiye from no recording other than Aygül's voice. On the 1943 journey two more recordings were taken in Amasya under the heading "mersiye": the mersiye that Davut Aslan and Mehmet İnan sang from Garip in Zigala bears the name Kaf u Nun Hitabı İzhar Olmadan in the TRT repertoire, and the title of Mehmet Hulusi Er's "Peygamberin Medhiyesi" also has mersiye in parentheses. Aygül's deyiş attributed to Pir Sultan Abdal, Ben de Şu Dünyaya, is described on a separate page. The melodies of the districts can be viewed together through The Melody of Yeşilırmak.

Bibliography

Online sources