Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fâʿilâtün fâʿilâtün fâʿilâtün fâʿilün (identification of the metre is ours)

Mâh-ı aşûrâdur ey dil bil cihân ağlar bugün
'Arş ü ferş ü şems ü mâh u âsumân ağlar bugün
Öyle bir gündür bugün kim şâh-ı deşt-i Kerbelâ
El-'ataş-gûyâ olup eyler figân ağlar bugün
Ey emîrü'l-mü'minîn gel kândesin imdâd kıl
Zâde-i Zehrâ içün fahr-ı cihân ağlar bugün
Mürg-i cânım lâne-i tende karâr itmez döner
Neylesün netsün ne yapsın ins ü cân ağlar bugün
Farz iken 'âlemde ehl-i beyte hubb u ihtirâm
Tîğ-i a'dâdan bedensiz ser hemân ağlar bugün
Saht-dil mel'ûn Yezîd ü Şimr ile bin Ziyâd
İtdiği ef'âle billâh kudsiyân ağlar bugün
Sâmiyâ gördim bu dem çekmiş siyâh pûşideyi
Lâ-fetâ sırrına mazhar bî-gümân ağlar bugün

In English

1. O heart, know that this is the month of Ashura; today the world weeps. The Throne of God and the earth, the sun, the moon and the sky weep today.

2. Today is such a day that the king of the plain of Karbala (Hüseyin) cries out "thirst", laments and weeps today.

3. O Commander of the Faithful (Ali), where are you? Come and help; for the son of Zehrâ (Fâtıma) the pride of the world (the Prophet) weeps today.

4. The bird of my soul finds no rest in the nest of the body and keeps turning; what can it do, what can it make of it, men and jinn weep today.

5. Though love and reverence for the Prophet's family are a duty in this world, the head severed from its body by the enemy's sword still weeps today.

6. At the deeds of hard-hearted, accursed Yezid, Şimr and Ibn Ziyâd, by God, the angels weep today.

7. O Sâmî, I saw at this moment the black covering drawn; there is no doubt that he who bears the secret of "lâ fetâ" (Ali) weeps today.

Literary and Historical Commentary

A Day of Muharram in Najaf

Where and how this elegy was spoken is known from the poet's own account. While serving as accountant in the sanjak of Karbala between 1309 and 1313 (1891-1896), Resûl Sâmi Efendi went to Najaf in a month of Muharram, visited the tomb attributed to Ali and, joining the mourning ceremony of the Iranians there, spoke this poem extempore, that is, without preparation. He later sent the poem together with his biography to Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar, who included it in Amasya Tarihi. That an Ottoman finance official should join the Ashura mourning of Iranian pilgrims and record it in a poem accords with Hüsameddin's description of him as "devoted to the descendants of Ali". The circle of Mîr Hamza Nigârî, to whom Sâmi had attached himself in Amasya, was likewise one that gave prominence to love of Ali and the Prophet's family.

The Circle of Mourners

Every couplet of the poem ends with the refrain word (redif) "ağlar bugün", "weeps today", and each couplet widens the circle of mourners a little further or turns it in another direction. In the first couplet it is the whole universe that weeps: the Throne, the earth, the sun, the moon and the sky are listed one after another in a single line. The second couplet descends to Karbala itself; Hüseyin, the king of the plain, is recalled by the cry "el-ataş", "thirst", which alludes to the cutting off of water at Karbala. In the third couplet the poet calls upon Ali and says that the Prophet weeps for the son of his daughter Fâtıma. In the fourth couplet the speech turns to the poet himself: the bird of his soul cannot stay in the cage of the body. The fifth couplet alludes, through the weeping of the severed head, to the most harrowing scene of Karbala; the sixth curses Yezid, Şimr and Ubeydullah Ibn Ziyâd by name and adds the angels to the mourners.

In the pen-name couplet the circle closes once more on Ali. The phrase "lâ-fetâ sırrına mazhar" rests on the saying about Ali, "Lâ fetâ illâ Alî, lâ seyfe illâ Zülfikâr" (There is no hero but Ali, no sword but Zülfikâr). The "siyâh pûşide", the black covering the poet says he saw, may be a cloth drawn over the tomb for the Muharram mourning; considering that the poem was spoken during a visit to a tomb in Najaf this reading is plausible, but the source does not explain what the covering was.

Structure of the Poem

The elegy is written in the form of a ghazal (gazel): it has seven couplets, both lines of the first couplet and the second lines of the following couplets end in "-ân ağlar bugün", and the poet's pen name (mahlas) "Sâmî" appears in the last couplet. The rhyme is the sound "-ân" in the words "cihân", "âsumân", "figân", "cân", "hemân", "kudsiyân" and "bî-gümân". The language is plain; Arabic and Persian compounds are largely confined to the familiar names and phrases of the Karbala story. The article Resûl Sâmi Efendi follows Sâmi's official career from Şeki to Istanbul.

Bibliography

Online sources