Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mefâîlün mefâîlün mefâîlün mefâîlün

Didim cânâ ser-i zülfüňde dil benddir boşanmaz ya
Dedi kûy-ı dilârâsından ‘âşıḳlar uṣanmaz ya

In English

1. I said, O beloved, the heart is bound to the tip of your tresses, it cannot get free; (the beloved) said, lovers never tire of the quarter of the heart-ravisher.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is recorded in the cönk as an aruz semai. The semais minstrels composed in aruz are usually written in the pattern of four "mefâîlün" feet and sung to the saz. Because Hakverdioğlu's article publishes only the first verse unit of each poem in the cönk, we know only the opening couplet of this poem. The refrain is "-maz ya"; the rhyme is the "-anmaz" sound in "boşanmaz / usanmaz". 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

The couplet sets up a conversation between lover and beloved in the form "I said / (s)he said". This question-and-answer pattern, known in divan poetry as "sual ü cevap", is also popular in minstrel poetry. The lover says that his heart is bound to the "ser-i zülf", the tip of the beloved's tresses, and cannot get free; the beloved answers that lovers never tire of the beloved's "kûy", the quarter where the beloved lives. The beloved's reply carries a light mockery and a self-assured coquetry. The particle "ya" in the refrain comes from spoken language and, in the sense "of course, after all", turns both lines into firm statements.

Historical Context

The poem is recorded under the pen name Yesârî in the Merzifon Cönkü introduced by Metin Hakverdioğlu in 2019; the cönk contains four of Yesârî's poems, one in syllabic metre and three in aruz. The article does not introduce the poet. Yesârî of Çankırı is named among the poets with whom Tokatlı Nûrî held poetic gatherings in Çankırı, and the cönk includes, alongside Nûrî, names from the same circle such as Zahmî and Bezmî; it is therefore likely that the poem belongs to the minstrel Yesârî of Çankırı, but this is our inference. For details, see the page on Yesârî. The poem is on page 20 of the cönk and page 552 of the article; its full text is in the cönk itself and has not been published to date.

Bibliography

Online sources