Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: eleven-syllable syllabic metre

Ne kaçarsın benden ey melek suret
Şema sakınır mı pervanesinden
Mansur gibi berdar olsam akıbet
Vazgeçmem zülfünün bir tanesinden
Kaldır seyredeyim hüsnü nikâbın
Ağlatıp akıtma çeşmin serabın
Bu yangın gönlüme aşkın şarabı
Doldur ver visalin peymanesinden
Sahibül adalet ey şahı huban
Lebinden bir buse eyle gel ihsan
Bezmi muhabbetten saki devran
Bâde esirger mi mestanesinden
Hançer vur sineme al kan et beni
Iydi vüslatından kurban et beni
Derim yüz istersen üryan et beni
Aşık can mı saklar cananesinden
SIDKI ya sıdkile eyledin karar
Kesseler kellemi edemem inkar
Hakikat babında sadakatli yar
Geçer mi aşığı divanesinden

In English

1. O angel-faced one, why do you run from me? Does the candle shun its moth? Even if in the end I were hanged on the gallows like Mansur, I would not give up a single strand of your hair.

2. Lift the veil from your lovely face so that I may gaze; do not make me weep and send the tears of my eye flowing like a flood. Fill this burning heart of mine with the wine of love from the cup of union.

3. O lord of justice, O sovereign of the fair, come, grant me a kiss from your lips. Does the cupbearer of the feast of love withhold wine from the one already drunk with it?

4. Strike a dagger into my breast and leave me in blood; sacrifice me on the feast day of union. If you wish, flay my skin and leave me naked; does a lover spare his life from his beloved?

5. O Sıdkı, you have made your resolve with sincerity (sıdk); even if they cut off my head I cannot deny it. Does a beloved faithful on the path of truth give up the lover who has gone mad for him?

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This is a koşma of five quatrains in the eleven-syllable metre (the syllable count is ours). The fourth line of every quatrain ends in the suffix "-sinden", and the words "pervanesinden, tanesinden, peymanesinden, mestanesinden, cananesinden, divanesinden" carry the rhyme. The first quatrain has cross rhyme ("suret, akıbet"); in the others the first three lines rhyme among themselves ("nikâbın, serabın, şarabı"; "huban, ihsan, devran"; "kan et, kurban et, üryan et" with the redif "beni"; "karar, inkar, yar"). The pen name appears as "Sıdkı" in the last quatrain.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The deyiş is a love poem that uses the conventional images of divan poetry in the measure of folk poetry. The candle and the moth in the first quatrain are the familiar symbol of the lover who throws himself into the fire of the beloved; since Sıdkî's first pen name was Pervane (moth), the line also carries a double entendre, though this connection is our own interpretation. Then Hallaj-i Mansur, sent to the gallows for saying "I am the Truth", is recalled; in Alevi-Bektashi poetry Mansur is the model of the lover who gives his life for love.

Words of the gathering such as cupbearer, wine, cup and "the drunken one" create a language suited to a deyiş sung in the cem; the phrase "bezm-i muhabbet" stands for the gathering of fellowship. In the fourth quatrain the lover offers himself as a sacrifice to be slaughtered on the feast day of union. In the last quatrain the pen name is joined to the word "sıdk", so that the meaning of the name opens out into sincerity and loyalty.

Bibliography

Online sources