Seyfî is a mani and saz poet named among the folk poets of seventeenth-century Amasya in Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar's Amasya Tarihi (History of Amasya). Hüsameddin counts him together with Cihâdî, Hüznî and Izzî among the Amasya folk poets whose mani and melodies were "deeply plaintive". The sources hold no record of him beyond this list; his real name, life and poems are unknown. Because the pen name Seyfî was borne by more than one person in the history of Amasya, this folk poet must not be confused with Seyfî of Sinop, the judge-poet who was a friend of Bayezid II, or with Âbâdoğlu Seyfî Bey, whom Hüsameddin describes in a separate entry. This page brings together what is known about the Seyfî of the list and the records that set him apart from his namesakes.

Hüsameddin's Entry

In his fourth volume, describing the third period of Amasya's history between 1017 (1608) and 1099 (1688), Hüsameddin lists the city's poets of the pen and its folk poets separately:

Kalem şuarâsından Kelâmî, Türâbî, Abdî, Remzî, Câmî, Zühdî, Şevkî, Hıfzî, Dâniş gibi fuzalâ ve halk şâirlerinden Cihâdî, Hüznî, Seyfî, Izzî gibi zevât Amasya'nın edebiyatına revnak veren erlerdi. Amasya'nın halk şâirleri pek âşık, yaptıkları mânilerle ezgiler pek yanıktı.

In English: "Learned men among the poets of the pen such as Kelâmî, Türâbî, Abdî, Remzî, Câmî, Zühdî, Şevkî, Hıfzî and Dâniş, and among the folk poets such figures as Cihâdî, Hüznî, Seyfî and Izzî, were the worthies who lent lustre to the literature of Amasya. The folk poets of Amasya were full of passion, and the mani and melodies they made were deeply plaintive." Hüsameddin adds that these mani had been preserved by word of mouth down to his own day and that the man who knew them best was the bağlama poet Abdal Ağasızâde İsmâil Hakkı Efendi.

Life and Period

Nothing is known of Seyfî's life beyond this sentence. The pen name comes from the Arabic word "seyf" (sword); the poet's real name was not recorded. Since Hüsameddin counts him among the poets of the third period, he must have lived in the seventeenth century. The Cihâdî at the head of the list is very probably Cihâdî Ahmed Ağa, who heartened the janissaries with his destans at the siege of Candia and died around 1093 (1682); Seyfî may be thought to belong to the same generation or a period close to it. This is an inference. Cavit Güzel's 2020 study, on the other hand, places the list at the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth century and gives it as "Cihâdî, Hüznî, Seyfî and Garibî". Seyfî's name appears in both readings.

Whether Seyfî was a janissary, a tradesman or a coffeehouse minstrel is not known. The other saz poets Hüsameddin describes for the same century, the sipahi Celâlî Mehmed Ağa and the janissary Cihâdî Ahmed Ağa, played their instruments in coffeehouses and within the army. It is plausible that the folk poets on the list were known in the same milieu, but there is no record showing this for Seyfî.

Namesakes

Hüsameddin's biographical volumes and the tezkires (biographical anthologies of poets) contain other people bearing the name Seyfî; neither the period nor the character of any of them matches the folk poet of the list:

  • Seyfî of Sinop: a judge-poet of the second half of the fifteenth century whose friendship with Bayezid II went back to the prince's years in Amasya. He is a poet of the divan milieu mentioned in the tezkires and died while serving as judge of Sofia; he has nothing to do with the seventeenth-century folk poet on Hüsameddin's list.
  • Âbâdoğlu Seyfî Bey: a native of Hakala, son of Abdullah Bey of the Âbâdoğulları. He studied in Amasya, attached himself to Bayezid II, became a sanjak governor and died in 892 (1487) in battle against the Mamluks. Hüsameddin describes him as "a man of letters and a poet" (in the Hüsameddin encyclopedia). He was a poet of the pen, and his lifetime falls two centuries earlier.
  • Şeyhlü Seyfî Dede: a Halveti sheikh from Lâdik; he served Sheikh Zekeriyyâ-yı Halvetî in Amasya and returned to Lâdik after his master's death in 878 (1473-74) (in the Hüsameddin encyclopedia). The source does not mention him as a poet.
  • Deli Seyfî Bey: grandson of Seyfullah Bey of the Yeğen Bekiroğlu family; he died in 1309 (1891-92). Hüsameddin says of him "şâ'irlenirdi", that he liked to play the poet, and quotes a couplet that was never off his lips (in the Hüsameddin encyclopedia). He lived at the end of the nineteenth century.

Connection with Amasya

Hüsameddin explicitly counts Seyfî among the folk poets "raised by Amasya". This shows that the poet was a native of Amasya or grew up there. The connection rests on a single source, and that source is the section describing the city's own literary life.

Poetry

None of Seyfî's poems has come down to us. Hüsameddin gives no example. Güzel too states that the Amasya Tarihi contains no examples of the works of the minstrels it names and that no work by any of them could be found in other sources. Some of the plaintive mani Hüsameddin speaks of may have been Seyfî's; but these mani were never written down and were largely lost with the last people who knew them in the early twentieth century. The couplet in the entry on Deli Seyfî Bey belongs neither to this folk poet nor, with any certainty, to Deli Seyfî himself; Hüsameddin cites it only as a saying Deli Seyfî was always repeating. Fuller information on Amasya's saz and mani tradition can be found in the site's articles on Amasya folk songs and long songs and the minstrel tradition in Amasya.

State of the Sources

The Seyfî of the list is a single-source poet. Volumes six to twelve of Hüsameddin contain entries for people named Seyfî, but as shown above none of them belongs to a folk poet who lived in the seventeenth century. Güzel's study takes its information from Hüsameddin, and the name does not appear in recent studies listing the minstrels of the region. The dating on this page is our inference; the information on the namesakes rests on the source given for each.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Academic studies

Online sources