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PİR SULTAN ABDAL and me

~ A personal reflection on the great Alevi poet's lyric works and influence – mostly through translation

PİR SULTAN ABDAL and me

Tag Archives: Ali Haydar Avcı

Pir Sultan Abdal ‘Şu kanlı zalimin ettiği işler’

07 Monday Jun 2010

Posted by koerbin in Translations

≈ 1 Comment

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Ali Baba, Ali Haydar Avcı, Annemarie Schimmel, Aşık Ali İzzet, Feyzullah Çınar, Gölpınarlı, Hızır Paşa, Mansur al-Hallaj, Pertev Naili Boratav, İbrahim Aslanoğlu

Pir Sultan statue at Çilehane hill at HacıbektaşA song dealing with the demise of Pir Sultan as he proceeds to his execution while Hızır Paşa – the bloody tyrant referreed to – orders the people to cast stones at him. Legend has it that Pir Sultan’s friend, Ali Baba, tossed a rose; a dissembling act that wounds Pir Sultan the deepest. This of course, as Gölpınarlı and Boratav (1943) the first to publish the text note, revisits the story associated with the martyrdom of Mansur al-Hallaj in 922 when his friend Shibli threw a rose when the people began to stone Hallaj. As Annemarie Schimmel describes it (Mystical Dimensions of Islam, 1975), when Shibli did this Hallaj sighed since those who threw stones did not know what they were doing, but Shibli did. And this has much the same theme in the Pir Sultan context – it is the betrayal that wounds.

Aslanoğlu  (1984) rejects this as a Pir Sultan text and claims it as a composite of verses from Aşık Hüseyin and Tarsuslu Sıkdı. I have not been able to locate the full text of Aşık Hüseyin although Avcı gives a mahlas verse from Aşık Hüseyin (probably 18th century) from a mecmua provided by Adil Ali Atalay that reads: ‘Hüseyin’im eyder can göğe ağmaz / Hakk’tan emr’olmazsa ırahmet yağmaz / Şu illerin sözü hiç bana değmez  / İlle dostun sözü yareler beni‘ (Ali Haydar Avcı Osmanlı gızlı tarihinden Pir Sultan Abdal, 2006 p. 342-343).  Tarsuslu Sıdkı Aslanoğlu refers to Aşık Sıdkı (Pervane) and a text is found in the major collection of Sıdkı’s lyrics compiled by his grandson Muhsin Gül (1984) that bears some similarity. Indeed a number of Sıdkı’s lyrics do bear the language of some of the most renowned lyrics attributed to Pir Sultan including Gelin canlar bir olalım and Kul olayım kalem tutan eller. The source of the text published in Gölpınarlı and Boratav is Aşık Ali İzzet who was forthcoming in his openness about attributing texts as he felt appropriate (see again Ali Haydar Avcı’s monumental work Osmanlı gızlı tarihinden Pir Sultan Abdal (2006 p. 236-351) for a consideration of Ali İzzet’s influence in respect to these lyrics). So Aslanoğlu’s assertion may have merit – but only so far, since it remains without question an important and fixed text of the Pir Sultan of tradition. It is sung to a fine tune, and perhaps the finest recording is that by Feyzullah Çınar made in Paris for Radio France in 1971 under the sponsorship of the late Irene Melikoff.

Pir Sultan Abdal: ‘Şu kanlı zalimin ettiği işler’

Translation: Paul Koerbin

Those blood tainted tyrant’s deeds

Make me moan like a lonely nightingale

Stones rain down like a torrent upon me

But it is the friend’s mere pinch that wounds me

Friend and foe are revealed in my dire straits

My troubles that once were ten are now fifty

The order for my death is fixed to my neck

So let them strike me down or let them hang me

I am Pir Sultan Abdal my soul does not flee

If not decreed by God mercy does not rain down

The stones of those strangers will never touch me

But it’s the rose of that friend that wounds me 

————————————————————————————————————-

Şu kanlı zalimin ettiği işler

Garip bülbül gibi zareler beni

Yağmur gibi yağar başıma taşlar

Dostun bir fiskesi yaralar beni

Dar günümde dost düşmanım bell’oldu

On derdim var ise şimdi ell’oldu

Ecel fermanı boynuma takıldı

Gerek asa gerek vuralar beni

 

Pir Sultan Abdal’ım can göğe ağmaz

Hak’tan emr olmazsa irahmet yağmaz

Şu illerin taşı hiç bana değmez

İlle dostun gülü yaralar beni 

 

Pir Sultan Abdal ‘Ey benim dîvane gönlüm’

22 Tuesday Sep 2009

Posted by koerbin in Translations

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Ali Haydar Avcı, deyiş, Erkan Oğur, Sadettin Nüzhet Ergun, Translation, İsmail H. Demircioğlu

dogubeyazit2The text given here and used for this translation is from Ergun’s 1929 publication and I have retained the original orthography which includes some flexibility in the choice of vowel, e.g. gice for gece, aktur for aktır, dir for der. This text is another that seems to have some age to it with strong sufi elements. Erkan Oğur and İsmail H. Demircioğlu recorded a languid, contemplative arrangement (tune written by Demircioğlu) on their 1998 Kalan recording Gülün Kokusu Vardı, which brings out this characteristic. Their recording includes some variations in the text, notably in the last couplet of first verse which they sing as Bu cefayı kendi özüm / Pek mail gördüm yalınız (the accompanying booklet prints cezayı for cefayı but they sing the latter). This verse equates to the text as presented by Ali Haydar Avcı in his work Osmanlı gızlı tarihinde Pir Sultan Abdal ve bütün deyişleri, Noktakitab, 2006 (p. 775).  He also provides another version of these lines: Yüce dağların başında / Kaynadım çoştum yalınız. Both these readings avoid the reference to the three day new moon period of the lunar month mihâk. The singers also discard the 4th verse. The other notable variations to be found refer to the final verse where “the forty” (kırklar) is added to “the three” and “the seven”, replacing Erenler; and Ergun also notes a variant in second line of the third verse, found in mecmua number 40 in the Selim Ağa Kütüphanesi in Üsküdar, which reads: Varsam hayır himmet alsam.

Pir Sultan Abdal: Ey benim dîvane gönlüm

Translation: Paul Koerbin

Hey my foolish heart

I fell upon the mountains alone

This is the reason for this sigh of mine

I saw a time of the new moon alone

There are mountains higher than mountains

Can the soul endure this force

Of my pain for three days and nights

If I speak ceaseless, alone

If I were to reach the foot of the Shah

If I were to take the blessed prayer

If I were to plunge into the Red River

If I were to purl and flow alone

My Shah’s river flows clear

It’s taste more sweet than sugar

There is nothing greater than Allah

God I said and stood alone

I am Pir Sultan those who see tell

Those giving salutation to the saints

The Enlightened by threes and sevens

I came for blessing alone

————————————————————————–

Original text from Sadettin Ergun, Pir Sultan Abdal, 1929

Ey benim dîvane gönlüm

Dağlara düştüm yalınız

Bu benim âhım yüzünden

Bir mihâk gördüm yalınız

Dağlara var dağlardan yüce

Can mı dayanır bu güce

Hâlimi üç gün üç gice

Söylesem bitmez yalınız

Şâh’ın ayağına varsam

Hayırlı gülangin alsam

Kızıl ırmaklarına dalsam

Çaglasam aksam yalınız

Şâh’ımın ırmağı aktur

Lezzeti şekerden çoktur

Bir Allah’tan büyük yoktur

Hak didim durdum yalınız

Pir Sultan’ım dir görenler

Pirlere niyaz idenler

Üçler yediler erenler

Mürvete geldim yalınız

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