Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: 11'li hece ölçüsü

Kâtip sen yaz ṣabâ sen de kerem ḳıl
Götür ‘arẑ-ı ḥâlim yâre tez elden
Nâzikdi efendim nezâketlü yaz
Gönderelim o dildâre tez elden

In English

1. Scribe, you write; morning breeze, you too be gracious and carry the account of my state to the beloved without delay. My lord is delicate, so write with courtesy; let us send it to that heart-holder without delay.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The quatrain is the beginning of a koşma recorded under the pen name Zihnî on page 35 of the Merzifon Cönkü; since Hakverdioğlu gives only the first quatrain, the rest of the koşma is unknown. The lines have eleven syllables; the syllable count is ours. The second and fourth lines share the redif "tez elden" (without delay), with "yâre" and "dildâre" as the rhyme. The first and third lines, ending in "kıl" and "yaz", stay unrhymed; this is a pattern often seen in the first quatrain of a koşma.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The quatrain has the air of a letter koşma. The lover addresses two separate messengers. The first is the scribe: the lover tells him to write down his state and to write with courtesy, remembering that the beloved is delicate. The second is the saba: the morning breeze, which in divan and folk poetry carries news between lover and beloved, is here too the one who will carry the letter. "Arz-ı hâl" means both a petition and an account of one's own state; the word carries a sense that likens the beloved to a great personage and the lover to one presenting a petition. Calling the beloved "efendim" (my lord) and "dildâr", the holder of the heart, continues this respectful address. The scene of dictating to a scribe may recall the real habit of minstrels who could not read or write or who had their words written down; but the scribe can also be read as a figure within the poem. The redif "tez elden" stresses the lover's impatience twice.

Historical Context

The poem is recorded in the Merzifon Cönkü under the pen name Zihnî. 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 Zihnî.

Bibliography

Online sources