Sanki Benim Değil İmiş is a hymn that follows a dead person, stanza by stanza, from the house to the grave: the white shroud is cut, the heirs divide the property, and the dead is mounted on a "lifeless horse" and sent to the tomb. Most stanzas close on the same admission: mother, father, children, wealth, the mountains one wandered, all seem never to have been mine. The piece, in the Hicaz mode, was collected from Hacı Asiye Akbaş and stands tenth in the eleven-item list Fatih Koca published in 2015.

Catalogue Data

  • Repertoire no.: none; it is not registered in the Amasya section of the TRT repertoire
  • Genre: ilahi, a religious hymn
  • Region: Amasya (city centre)
  • Source person: Hacı Asiye Akbaş, with the participation of Ayşe Candaş
  • Collected by: Osman Akbaş and Fatih Koca
  • Transcribed by: Eren Köksal, revising the collected scores
  • Date of collection: not stated; Koca's meeting with Akbaş took place at the Ramadan Bayram of 2013
  • Makam (mode): Hicaz
  • Metre and tempo: 10/8, crotchet = 70
  • Words and music: anonymous
  • Source publication: Koca 2015, list p. 937, score p. 949
  • Link: the piece has no TRT link; the online text of the article

Lyrics

The words are printed below the score in two columns, as six stanzas; the left column is given first below, then the right. The spelling has been kept, including the alternative word marked with a slash.

Fanidir dünyanın adı
Aldatır insanı malı
Annem babam yavrularım
Sanki benim değil imiş
Ne istersem gelmez elden
Çünkü yazılmış ezelden
Çıkardılar beni evden
Sanki benim değil imiş
Çıkardılar beni evden
Yavrularım hem gelmeden
Cansız ata bindirdiler
Yalnız kabre gönderdiler
Hemen kabre gönderdiler
Beyaz kefenim biçilir
Tenim ortaya açılır
Mirasçılar mal bölüşür
Sanki benim değil imiş
Dağlar taşlar dolaştım
Yiyip gezip su içtiğim
Güzel güzel konuştuğum
Sanki benim değil imiş
Gidiyorum geri gelmem
Ne olacak halim bilmem
Emzirip büyüttün annem / yavrum
Sanki benim değil imiş
Bu dünya hep yalan imiş

The hymn speaks in the voice of the dead. The world's name is transience, its wealth deceives; even mother, father and children seem never to have been one's own. Nothing can be done, because everything was written in eternity. In the third stanza the speaker is carried out of the house, mounted on the "lifeless horse" before the children arrive, and sent to the grave; the order of the stanza makes plain that the lifeless horse is the coffin. This stanza has no refrain at its end; instead two very similar lines are written: "Yalnız kabre gönderdiler" (they sent me alone to the grave) and "Hemen kabre gönderdiler" (they sent me straight to the grave). Whether the singer chose one of them or sang both in turn cannot be told from the score. In the fourth stanza the shroud is cut, the body laid bare, and the heirs share out the property. In the last stanza two words are written for the end of the line "Emzirip büyüttün" (you nursed and raised): "annem" (my mother) and "yavrum" (my child). Neither the score nor Koca's text explains which is sung when. The hymn closes with a line found in no other stanza: "Bu dünya hep yalan imiş" (this world was all a lie).

Its Story

Whose words these are and how the hymn came to Amasya is not known; the score names both words and music as anonymous. Koca writes that Akbaş washed the dead from the age of fourteen, sang at many gatherings including mevlids for the dead, and chose her hymns to suit the gathering. That this hymn was chosen for a funeral or a mevlid for the dead, however, is not stated in the article.

Musical Features

It is a short melody of eight bars in a ten-beat metre, carrying the four lines of each stanza at the rate of half a line per bar. The score has two sections. The lines "Fanidir dünyanın adı, aldatır insanı malı" are sung in the first four bars, "Annem babam yavrularım, sanki benim değil imiş" in the last four; both sections close with repeat signs. Six of the eight bars begin with a rest, so that each half line enters after the first beat of the bar. The sign at the beginning and end of the score shows that the stanzas are sung to the same melody by returning to the start. The key signature has one flat and one sharp, and the tempo is crotchet 70.

Performers and Recordings

Beyond the form Akbaş sang for the collection, no other rendering of the hymn has been found; where the recording of that performance is kept the publication does not say. The article that describes the city's folk melodies together is titled The Melody of Yeşilırmak.

Bibliography

Online sources