The one who sings this lament is the dead bride herself. A bride not yet fifteen tells how three days ago she saw a dream marked with black, how three days ago she dyed her hands with henna; she says that seven bullets were written on her gravestone, and she ends each stanza by calling out to her killer: "Kıyma kanlı zalim gel bana kıyma", do not slay me, bloody tyrant. The words of the six-stanza text can be read in an online collection, registered to Amasya and anonymous. Haluk Yücel, too, in his 2018 study of the region's songs, counts the same title among the long songs (uzun hava).

Catalogue Data

  • Repertoire no.: none; no work of this name was found in the Amasya section of the TRT repertoire
  • Region: Amasya
  • Type: lament (ağıt); a long song in Yücel's table (Table 5, p. 380)
  • Metre: free (Yücel 2018, Table 6, p. 384)
  • Mode (makam): not stated
  • Source performer, collector, date of collection: in neither source
  • Words and music: anonymous
  • Links: no TRT link; the words are on Türkü Yurdu; Yücel 2018

Lyrics

Üç gün önce gördüm karalı düşün
Felek kara yele bağladı başım
Daha onbeş yaşa değmedi başım
Kıyma kanlı zalim gel bana kıyma
Yalandır sözleri sözüne uyma

Üç gün evvel kınaladım elimi
Bohçaladım yeşilimi alımı
Ben de bilmem gideceğim yolumu
Kıyma kanlı zalim gel bana kıyma
Yalandır sözleri sözüne uyma

Yedi kurşun yazdılar kabir taşıma
Varın bakın şu zalimin işine
Bir gelin vurmuşlar boşu boşuna
Kıyma kanlı zalim gel bana kıyma
Yalandır sözleri sözüne uyma

Odada serili ipekli minder
İpekli çarşamın çevresin dönder
Kusurum var ise babama gönder
Kıyma kanlı zalim gel bana kıyma
Yalandır sözleri sözüne uyma

Nettin kanlı zalim ben sana nettim
Malını alıp ele mi sattım
Yoksa namusuna hilemi kattım
Kıyma kanlı zalim gel bana kıyma
Yalandır sözleri sözüne uyma

Sen de benim gibi garip ölesin
Mapushane köşesinde kalasın
Kara toprağılan murat alasın
Kıyma kanlı zalim gel bana kıyma
Yalandır sözleri sözüne uyma

In English, the first stanza: Three days ago I saw a dream marked with black; fate bound my head to the black wind; my age had not yet reached fifteen. The refrain is the same in every stanza: Do not slay me, bloody tyrant, do not slay me; his words are lies, do not heed his word. The second stanza has the bride recall that three days ago she dyed her hand with henna, bundled up her green and red clothes, and does not know the road she will take. The third stanza turns the voice outward for a moment: "Go and see what this tyrant has done, they have shot a bride for nothing." In the fourth stanza the bride asks that, if she has a fault, she be sent back to her father; whether "çarşam" here means a sheet or some other covering cannot be made out from the text. In the fifth stanza she asks her killer: What did I do to you, did I take your goods and sell them to strangers, or did I bring deceit upon your honour? The last stanza is a curse: May you too die a stranger like me, may you stay in a corner of the prison, may your only wedding be with the black earth. "Nettin" means ne ettin, what did you do; "mapushane" means prison.

Story

The words of the lament tell of an event: a young bride has been shot and, in her own voice, calls out to her killer. When, where and to whom it happened, however, no published record shows. The bride's name, who the killer was and who first composed the lament are unknown; so no story can be given that goes beyond the words.

Musical Features

In Yücel's type table "Üç Gün Önce Gördüm" is the fourth of the seven works counted as long songs; in the metre table it sits under "free". The section of the article that defines the long song explains that these melodies are known by different names in different regions, such as bozlak, hoyrat, divan and yanık, and ends the list with laments. Makam and range are not given song by song in the article, nor has any notation appeared. In the words, each stanza consists of three changing lines and a fixed two-line refrain; the lines mostly run to eleven syllables.

Performers and Recordings

No document names a singer of the lament or points to a disc or archive recording. Yücel does not say from which recording or from whom he took the lament; no work of this name was found in TRT's Amasya repertoire either. The online text, for its part, carries no singer's name. Long songs like this one are placed in their regional setting by the general overview, The Melody of Yeşilırmak.

Bibliography

Online sources