The two lines of "Neylersin" that can be read today form the pen-name couplet: the poet addresses himself as Fedaî and says that the eye of the true one sees. The deyiş stands on page 152 of Amasya Türküleri, the book by Burhan Özbakır and S. T. Sünbül printed by the Amasya Municipality. In 2023, while tracing Alevi-Bektashi elements in the region's folk songs, Haluk Yücel quoted these two lines as an example of the concept of the "erenler", the saintly ones. Yücel, who found expressions of this belief in six of the forty songs he examined, counts "Neylersin" as one of those six works.
Catalogue Data
- Repertoire no.: none; not in the TRT repertoire
- Region: Amasya
- Type: deyiş
- Source performer, collector, date of collection: not given in the article that quotes it
- Mode, metre: unknown; Yücel's musical analyses do not cover this work
- Words: pen name Fedaî; the poet's identity is not stated in the source
- Music: unknown
- Source publication: Burhan Özbakır and S. T. Sünbül, Amasya Türküleri, 2010, p. 152 (as quoted by Yücel 2023)
- Link: no TRT link; Yücel's 2023 article
Lyrics
Ey Fedaî! Görür gerçeğin gözü,
Erenler seçerler sıyrıyı, yüzü.
The remaining lines of the deyiş could not be found; the book itself could not be consulted, and Yücel gives only these two lines. Since the poet's identity is uncertain and he may have died after 1956 or still be living, the two lines quoted in the article are all that is given here too. The first line says "the eye of the true one sees": the eye of the people of truth, that is, of one who has attained reality, sees. In the second line the source does not explain the word "sıyrı". If it is read as "sırrı", the secret, the sense becomes: the saintly ones discern both the secret and the face, that is, both the inner and the outer. This reading is only a suggestion; the spelling in the line may point to another word.
Story
On what occasion the deyiş was sung is not found in published sources, and the identity of the Fedaî who bears the pen name is not documented either. Two poets who used this pen name are known in Amasya: Fedâî Baba (1855-1940), Hak âşığı of Yassıçal, and Ozan Fedaî (Fedai Koç, 1956-2024) of Sarımeşe village. No source says the deyiş belongs to either of them; nor do these lines occur in the twenty poems on Fedâî Baba's page.
Musical Features
Yücel's 2023 article carries out its musical analysis on only four works from the TRT repertoire: "Selâm Verdik Kadem Bastık", "Geldiğiniz Evler Dol'olsun Nurdan", "Kaf u Nun Hitabı İzhâr Olmadan" and "Sabahtan Uğradım". "Neylersin" and "Ninni", taken from the book, remain outside these analyses. In which makam and metre the deyiş is sung is therefore unknown.
Performers and Recordings
Yücel states that he gathered the data for his 2023 study from the TRT Turkish folk music archive, from a CD of Amasya folk songs prepared by the TRT Music Department and from the book Amasya Türküleri printed by the Amasya Municipality. The source of "Neylersin" is the book; no information is given about a sound recording or a singer. Whether the book records from whom the deyiş was collected could not be checked either. The Melody of Yeşilırmak also touches on the minstrel tradition and Alevi-Bektashi melodies of the region.
Bibliography
- Haluk Yücel, "Amasya Yöresi Türkülerinde Alevi-Bektaşi Unsurları ve Bu Eserlerin Müzikal Analizleri", Online Journal of Music Sciences, 8(2), 2023, pp. 260-279 (used: pp. 262, 265, 267-277). https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/ojomus/article/1408681
- Burhan Özbakır and S. T. Sünbül, Amasya Türküleri, Amasya: Amasya Belediyesi, 2010, p. 152 (quoted from Yücel 2023; not seen directly).
Online sources
