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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: Menakıb

Pir Sultan Abdal ‘Benim pîrim Şah-ı Merdân Ali’dir’

28 Thursday May 2009

Posted by koerbin in Translations

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Bisâtî, deyiş, Menakıb, Translation

Benim Pirim facimileThis is a very challenging deyiş (nefes in the manuscript) to translate to English, so this must really be a work in progress. An interesting lyric because it comes from the the early 17th manuscript of the  Menâkıbu’l-Esrâr Behcetü’l-Ahrâr of Bisâtî (published in facsimile and modern transcription by Ahmet Taşğın in 2003). Interestingly, I have not found this text in any of the major collections of Pir Sultan Abdal poems. I have reproduced the transcription which does not adhere strictly to modern Turkish orthography. Given that this is one of the oldest recorded texts for a Pir Sultan lyric, we may reasonably look at it as carrying something of the original voice. The lyric, like much mystical poetry, shows a lot or paratactic elements (adding to the difficulty in achieving translation sense) and lacks some of the elements associated with lyrics that have been longer in the oral tradition, such as the repetition of lines (usually the last line in the quatrain). In this case we only get the repeated ‘cümle müşkillere yeter sabahdan’ in two verses. The translation tries to draw the essential character and meaning from the lyric, though may be uncertain in places. I found most difficulty in getting a satisfactory translation of the line ‘felek bir iş bişirmiş diyar gel ha ic‘ and I suspect the line ‘akceyi virirler gene akcesiye‘ may be proverbial, though I have not found a good English equivalent.  I have translated talib as ‘one who seeks’ rather than the simple noun ‘student’ as providing a better sense of the personal in the lyric (and perhaps to avoid other modernday confusions). The word ‘gün‘, the common word for day, also has meanings (particularly in older usage and poetry) of  ‘sun’ and ‘light’. Consequently I have used various aspects of this meaning in the translation. The image, taken from Taşğın’s book, is of the original text in the manuscript.

Benim pîrim Şah-ı Merdân Ali’dir

Translation: Paul Koerbin

My master saint is the Shah Ali

Send your greeting by the moon at dawn

I dare to strive to be as my saint

I pray to my saint with the morning light

Evening time and the sun recedes to the land

The one who is seeking worships his saint

Two in companionship one for each other

Enough for all hardships come the morning

Our eye to the ground  fixes on the coin

They give coin again for the coin itself

The nightingale settles in the garden before

dawn

With the morning the sun sheds it tears

Two pearls grow in the ocean depths

A pearl in part jewel in part shell

We take refuge with our Shah Ali

Enough for all hardships come the morning

A fateful work ripens the land, come and drink

Work a hundred years,  it is little in the end

That world of halting and moving on

I am Pir Sultan, he passed once with the morning

light

Original text from the Şeyh Sâfî Buyruğu (Menâkıbu’l-Esrâr Behcetü’l-Ahrâr) of Bisâtî edited by Ahmet Taşğın, Ankara 2003:

Benim pîrim Şah-ı Merdân Ali’dir

Selâmını göndür bedr-i sabahdan

Ben tâlibim ne haddim var pîr olam

Pîre duâcıyım her gün sabahdan

Ahşam oldı günde gitti yerine

Tâlib olan kulluk eyler pîrine

İki musâhibde biri birine

Cümle müşkillere yeter sabahdan

Bizim yerde göz dikerler akceye

Akceyi virirler gene akcesiye

Seher vakti bilbül konar bakceye

Göz yaşını gün döker sabahdan

Deryalarda biter iki dürdane

Biri gevher biri sedef biri dürdane

Biz de sığınmısız Şah-ı Merdâna

Cümle müşkillere yeter sabahdan

Felek bir iş bişirmiş diyar gel ha ic

Yüz yıl calış aziş ahir sonı hiç

Şu dünya kona kondur göce göc

Pîr Sultanım gecdi bir gün sabahdan

Pir Sultan ‘Serseri girme meydana’

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Posted by koerbin in Translations

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deyiş, Gölpınarlı, Menakıb, Translation

banaz-meydan1.jpg

Kırklar meydanı at Banaz with view towards Yıldız Dağı (Photograph: P. Koerbin, 2002)

This is my translation of one of the few Pir Sultan deyiş that survive from a near contemporary source. The oldest source for Pir Sultan’s poems is the Menâkıb ül-Esrâr Behçet’ül Ahrâr the büyük buyruk or İmam Cafer buyruğu assumed to date from the time of Shah Tahmasp (and possibly the work of Kul Himmet) although the surving manuscripts are early 17th century CE. The Menâkıb includes a small number of nefes (deyiş) although different manuscripts include different poems. Also included are poems by Şah Hatayî (Shah Ismail of Iran) along with Pir Sultan, clearly linking Pir Sultan to the Safavid Kızılbaş (Qizilbash) cause.

This particular lyric is from a manuscript of the Menâkıb that belonged to the the great Turkish literary and sufi historian Abdülbâkî Gölpınarlı and is included in what is still the most useful book on Pir Sultan, published originally in 1943 by Gölpınarlı  with the great folklorist Pertev Naili Boratav (with an expanded edition published in 1991). Unfortunately, as has also been lamented by Fuat Bozkurt in his edition of the İmam Cafer-i Sadık Buyruğu, we do not have access to the manuscript that was in Gölpınarlı’s possession, so the details cannot be confirmed or expanded nor the manuscript dated. Gölpınarlı identifies three nefes in his manuscript as being by Pir Sultan. In the editon of the Menâkıb published by Ahmet Taşğın there are only two nefes from Pir Sultan, and they are different to the three given by Gölpınarlı. The manuscript used by Taşğın and produced in (fairly rough) facsimile in his 2003 edition dates from around 1612 or 1613.  Anyway this lyric, Serseri girme meydana, gives a good sense of the feisty and robust lyric along with a pithy turn of phrase that seems to be authentic Pir Sultan. The language, as is often the case with this material, is both simple in essence and difficult and elusive in parts. It uses quite a bit of older Turkish and terms associated with the mystical pursuit. I have incorporated what I felt I reasonably could into the English translation, except for meydan (meanıng open space, but specifically the space where the ritual ceremonies are conducted) and aşık, meaning one who wishes to enter the tarikat (mystic order) way.

Pir Sultan Abdal: Serseri Girme Meydana

Translation: Paul Koerbin

 

Vagrant, don’t enter the meydan

They require conditions from the aşık

Don’t come the high and mighty with deceit

They want affirmation for the outward show

Awake from this somnolent stupor

They require proof of the inner person

From the conversation of every aşık

They require the way with declaration

Those who reach truth play a sure bet

There is no trick attached to this way

Here there are no baubles peddled

They require the ruby and the pearl

They go through parts splitting hairs

They grasp the one way and they go

The don’t count much for mere talk

The condition they require is within

Pir Sultan Abdal what do you do?

You say you have done the hard yards

You are a bee working over the flower

Tomorrow they will require honey from you

—————————————————————————————–

Original text from Gölpınarlı and Boratav, Pir Sultan Abdal (1943)

 

Serseri girme meydana

Aşıktan ahval isterler

Kallâşlık ile urma dem

Tasdik ehli kal isterler

Uyan bu gaflet hâbından

İsbat isterler bâtından

Her aşıka sohbetinden

İkrar ile yol isterler

Erenler oynar utulmaz

Bu yola hile katılmaz

Bunda harmühre satılmaz

Ya gevher ya la’l isterler

Kılı kırk pâre ederler

Birin yol tutup giderler

Dile n’ itibar ederler

Hâl içinde hâl isterler

Pir Sultan Abdal n’eylersin

Müşkil halledip söylersin

Arısın çiçek yaylarsın

Yarın senden bal isterler

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