Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: 11-syllable syllabic metre

Devrine aldanma sen bu dünyânıň
Durmaz bir ḳarâra döner bu dünyâ

(After the first two lines the article omits the middle of the poem and gives the final quatrain separately.)

Nûrî bu menzile eyle bir tedbîr
‘Âḳıbet olusuň dâmen-i esîr
Çünki bu yerin ki adı oldı sır
Seni de yer vara vara bu dünyâ

In English

1. Do not be deceived by the turning of this world; this world does not stay settled, it turns.

2. O Nûrî, make some provision for this halting place; in the end you will be a captive at (the earth's) hem. For the name of this place has become a secret; this world, slowly and surely, will consume you too.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a koşma. The koşma is the most common verse form of minstrel poetry; it is built of quatrains and usually sung in an eleven-syllable metre. The lines have a caesura after 6+5 or 4+4+3 syllables; the syllable count is ours. Because Hakverdioğlu's article publishes only the first verse unit of each poem in the cönk, we know the first two lines and the final quatrain of this poem. The opening lines show "dünyânıň" and the refrain "bu dünyâ"; in the final quatrain the first three lines rhyme in "tedbîr / esîr / sır", and the fourth line links back to the first stanza through the refrain. In this poem the article skips the middle with "…" after the first two lines and gives the last quatrain separately with the note "(Son dörtlük)" (final quatrain); the poem's other stanzas in the cönk have not been published. To whom and on what occasion the poem was composed is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

This koşma belongs among the didactic poems on the transience of the world. The article gives the first two lines and the last quatrain; the stanzas in between are omitted with dots. In the opening lines the world resembles a turning wheel: "devrine aldanma", do not trust its course, its cycle. In the final quatrain the poet addresses himself by his pen name; he sees the world as a "menzil", a halting place where caravans stop and move on, and advises that provision be made. The phrase "dâmen-i esîr" suggests becoming a captive at the hem of the earth after death. The last line, "seni de yer vara vara bu dünyâ", plays on the word "yer": it means both "earth" and "eats". The world, the earth, eats a person in the end. It is not clear which place the phrase "adı oldı sır" (its name has become a secret) in the third line refers to; it can be read as the grave or the world after death.

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 34 of the cönk and page 548 of the article; its full text is in the cönk itself and has not been published to date.

Bibliography

Online sources