Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mefâîlün mefâîlün mefâîlün mefâîlün

Ne bilem dâmen-i yardan kesildi bu elim yâ Rab
Revâ mı âhla zârdan ṣolsa ġonca-yı gülüm yâ Rab

In English

1. What can I know, O Lord, my hand has been cut off from the beloved's skirt; is it right that my rosebud should wither from sighs and laments, O Lord?

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 "yâ Rab"; the rhyme is the "-im / -üm" sound in "elim / gülüm". 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 is a complaint addressed to God. "Dâmen-i yârdan el kesilmek", the hand being cut off from the beloved's skirt, means that the possibility of reaching the beloved has gone; clinging to someone's skirt means in the older language taking refuge with someone and hoping for help. In the second line the lover asks whether it is right that his "gonca-yı gül", his rosebud, should wither because of sighs and moaning. The rosebud here may suggest the beloved, the lover's heart or his youth. The address "yâ Rab" (O Lord) in the refrain gives the complaint the tone of a prayer; "ne bilem" (what can I know) is, in everyday speech, an opening expressing helplessness.

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 48 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