Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilün

Ey perî bülbül gibi efkâre düşdüm gel yetiş
Aḳdı sel gibi hemân ‘ummâna düşdüm gel yetiş
Tâ ḳıyâmet ḥaşr olanda aġlaram Yâḳub gibi
Ḥażret-i Yûsuf gibi zindâne düşdüm gel yetiş

In English

1. O fairy, like the nightingale I have fallen into sorrow; come to my rescue. Flowing like a flood I have fallen straight into the ocean; come to my rescue.

2. Until the Day of Judgement, when all are raised, I shall weep like Jacob. Like the holy Joseph I have fallen into the dungeon; come to my rescue.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a divânî. The divânî is a form that saz poets composed in aruz, usually in the remel pattern "fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilün"; these couplets also fit that pattern. The identification of the metre is ours. Because Hakverdioğlu's article gives only the first verse unit of each poem in the cönk, we have the first two couplets of the poem. The refrain (redif) is "düşdüm gel yetiş"; the rhyme is built on the sounds "-âre / -âna / -âne" in the words "efkâre", "ummâna" and "zindâne". Such a loose rhyme suits the minstrel manner, which uses aruz but keeps the ease of folk diction. To whom, when and on what occasion the poem was composed is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The first couplet describes the lover's state with two comparisons. Like the nightingale he has fallen into "efkâr", that is, care and grief; in the rose and nightingale motif the nightingale is the symbol of the lover who laments, separated from the rose. In the second line the tears, or the lover himself, flow like a flood and pour into the ocean; the growth from flood to ocean shows that the pain knows no bounds. The second couplet alludes to the story of Joseph in the Qur'an and in folk narratives. Jacob wept for years for his lost son Joseph and lost his sight; Joseph was thrown into a well by his brothers and later fell into a dungeon in Egypt. The poet unites the two figures in one person: it is he who weeps like Jacob and he who lies in the dungeon like Joseph. This double allusion tells of separation in the language both of waiting and of captivity. The call "gel yetiş" (come to my rescue) at the end of every couplet summons the beloved like a saviour and forms the recurring refrain when the divânî is sung.

Historical Context

The couplets are on page 48 of the Merzifon Cönkü, held in Metin Hakverdioğlu's own library and introduced by him in 2019. Hakverdioğlu counts Serbesî among the "local poets whose names have never been heard"; no poet with this pen name has been found in any other source. The full text of the poem exists only in the cönk itself and has not been published. For what is known about the poet and the cönk, see the page on Serbesî.

Bibliography

Online sources