Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Feilâtün feilâtün feilâtün feilün

Yine aldı ġam u efkâr dil-i dâġ-ı tenin
Acımaz mı yüregiň merḥametiň yoḳ mu seniň
Ne revâ ġoncaya cevri hele serv-i semeniň
Acımaz mı yüregin merḥametiň yoḳ mu seniň

In English

1. Grief and care have once again seized the heart of this wounded body; does your heart feel no pity, have you no mercy? O cypress and jasmine, is such cruelty to the rosebud fitting? Does your heart feel no pity, have you no mercy?

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

Hakverdioğlu calls this piece a "düstûr" and gives it in the article as a four-line stanza. Because Hakverdioğlu's article publishes only the first verse unit of each poem in the cönk, we know only the first stanza of this poem. The first and third lines rhyme in "tenin / semeniň"; the second and fourth lines repeat the same line. The identification of the metre is ours; as is usual in the aruz poems of folk poets, some syllables may not fit the pattern exactly. To whom and on what occasion the poem was composed is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

This piece, which the article calls a "düstûr", takes the form of a four-line stanza. The second and fourth lines are identical: "Acımaz mı yüreğin merhametin yok mu senin" (Does your heart feel no pity, have you no mercy?). This repetition suggests that the stanza was sung like a song and had a refrain structure. In the first line the lover's body is called "dâğ-ı ten", a wounded, branded body; grief and care have taken hold of this body's heart. In the third line the beloved is called "serv-i semen": the cypress suggests the tall figure and the jasmine the white skin. The "gonca", rosebud, is here the lover himself or his heart not yet in bloom; the beloved's cruelty toward it is judged not "fitting". The stanza as a whole is an address in which pleading and reproach are interwoven.

Historical Context

The poem is recorded under the name of Tokatlı Nûrî in the Merzifon Cönkü introduced by Metin Hakverdioğlu in 2019; with thirty-six poems, Nûrî is the poet the cönk gives most space to. Drawing on Orhan Bilgin, Hakverdioğlu relates that Eyüb Sabrî of Merzifon often invited Nûrî to Merzifon; Nûrî's weight in the cönk can be explained by this friendship. Since other minstrels also used the pen name Nûrî, it is not certain that every Nûrî poem in the cönk belongs to Tokatlı Nûrî; the article attributes these poems to Tokatlı Nûrî. For the poet's life and his connection with Amasya, see the page on Tokatlı Nûrî. The poem is on page 20 of the cönk and page 549 of the article; its full text is in the cönk itself and has not been published to date.

Bibliography

Online sources