Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: eleven-syllable syllabic metre

Aşk atına süvar olan aşıklar
Ölünceye kadar yorulmaz imiş
Hakkı can gözüyle gören sadıklar
Bu fani dünyaya sarılmaz imiş
Arifler mal için etmez teftişi
Cümlenin muradın veren bir kişi
Bir gerçeğe taktıranlar kirişi
Değme tokmak ile kırılmaz imiş
Kiraman katibi cümleyi yazan
Berhudar mı olur doğrudan azan
Fırsat elde iken sermaye kazan
Eli boş divana varılmaz imiş
Bahçesini serçeşmeden su varan
Muhabbet meyvesi biter firavan
Ehl-i Beytten çerağını uyaran
Kıyamete kadar kararmaz imiş
SIDKI der yar olma kavl-i yalana
Sakın emeğini verir talana
Burda Hünkar evladına mühib olana
O divanda sual sorulmaz imiş

In English

1. Lovers who ride the horse of love, they say, never tire until they die. The faithful who see God with the eye of the soul, they say, do not cling to this passing world.

2. The wise do not take account of wealth; one alone grants every man his wish. Those who have strung their bow to one who is true, that is, who are bound to a true master, they say, cannot be broken by any mallet.

3. With the noble recording angels writing down everything, can one who strays from the right path prosper? While the chance is at hand, earn your capital; one cannot go empty-handed to that court, they say.

4. He who brings water to his garden from the spring-head harvests the fruit of love in abundance. The lamp of one who kindles his light from the Ahl al-Bayt, they say, never goes dark until the Day of Judgement.

5. Sıdkı says: do not befriend false words; beware of giving your labour up to plunder. He who here is devoted to the descendants of the Hünkâr, they say, is asked no question at that court.

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 second (in the first quatrain the second and fourth) and last lines of the quatrains end in the suffix "-maz imiş" ("they say, does not"): "yorulmaz, sarılmaz, kırılmaz, varılmaz, kararmaz, sorulmaz imiş". This structure gives the deyiş the air of a list of sayings. The first quatrain has cross rhyme ("aşıklar, sadıklar"); in the following quatrains the first three lines rhyme among themselves ("teftişi, kişi, kirişi"; "yazan, azan, kazan"; "varan, firavan, uyaran"; "yalana, talana, olana"). The pen name appears in the last quatrain.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The deyiş is a poem of counsel that sets out the ethics of the path in a series of short judgements. Love is likened to a horse, and devotion to a true master to a bow whose string has been fitted; a bow with a sound string does not break. In the third quatrain the two angels who record all a man's deeds, the Kirâmen Kâtibîn, are mentioned, and the hereafter is imagined as a divan, a high court, to which one cannot go "empty-handed".

The images of the spring-head and the lamp in the fourth quatrain point to the source of knowledge and light: water must be drawn from the spring-head, light from the Ahl al-Bayt. "Çerağ uyandırmak" (awakening the lamp) is the name for lighting the candle or lamp in Alevi-Bektashi cem rituals, and the deyiş uses this ritual phrase as a metaphor. The "descendants of the Hünkâr" in the last line are the çelebis of Hacıbektaş who descend from Hacı Bektaş Veli. Given Sıdkî's devotion to the çelebis Feyzullah and Cemaleddin, the deyiş expresses a belief that counts this devotion as a means of salvation in the hereafter.

Bibliography

Online sources