Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilün

Ḳande gitdi ol civânım gül-fidanım görmedim
Vech-i mürşîd-i münevver bedr-i mâhım görmedim

In English

1. Where has that youth of mine, my rose sapling, gone? I have not seen him. My full moon, whose face shines like the face of a radiant spiritual guide, I have not seen.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The text is the first couplet of a poem recorded under the pen name Visâlî on page 30 of the Merzifon Cönkü. Hakverdioğlu calls the poem a divan and gives only its first couplet. In folk poetry the divan is a form sung in aruz, usually in the pattern "fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilün"; nineteenth-century minstrels also composed poems in aruz forms such as the divan, the semâî and the kalenderî. Both lines share the redif "görmedim" (I have not seen); "fidanım" and "mâhım" make a weak rhyme in the long "â" before the suffix "-ım". The lines follow the pattern "fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilün"; the identification of the metre is ours. In Hakverdioğlu's count Visâlî is also credited with a poem in syllabic metre, but that poem does not appear in the article.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The couplet is built in a voice seeking a beloved person who has vanished, and both lines end in "görmedim" (I have not seen). The beloved is first named "civân", a youth, and "gül fidanı", a rose sapling; the rose sapling is a common comparison for a fresh and handsome youth of fine stature. In the second line the comparison moves into another field: the face of the one sought is "vech-i mürşid-i münevver", like the face of a radiant spiritual guide, and "bedr-i mâh" is the full moon. A mürşid is the spiritual guide who trains disciples in a Sufi order. This phrase allows the couplet two readings: the poem may be a love poem for a beloved whose face is likened to the light of a spiritual guide, or it may be a poem of longing and lament for a sheikh or spiritual guide who has really died or gone far away. Which is right cannot be told from the first couplet alone; this assessment is ours.

Historical Context

The poem is recorded in the Merzifon Cönkü under the pen name Visâlî. Hakverdioğlu gives no information about this poet, and his identity has not been established in any other source; no link can be made with the known poets who used the same pen name. The poem is therefore attributed to this poet solely on the strength of the record in the cönk. Since the cönk is thought to have been compiled in Merzifon in the nineteenth century, the poem was among the words recited in the Merzifon gatherings of that period. The state of the sources is described in the article Visâlî.

Bibliography

Online sources