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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: Muhabbet

Muhlis Akarsu ‘Gurbeti ben mi yarattım’

25 Friday Mar 2011

Posted by koerbin in Translations

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Arif Sağ, gurbet, koşma, mahlas, Muhabbet, Muhlis Akarsu, Musa Eroğlu, semai

Galata bridge at sunset 1999

Galata Bridge, Istanbul, 1999

When Arif Sağ re-emerged as a recording artist in the early 1980s having given away his arabesk career in the mid-1970s and worked as a teacher at the İstanbul Devlet Türk Müziği Konservatuarı, he released a cassette album called Gurbeti ben mi yarattım. The title song was from the Kangal aşık Muhlis Akarsu. Sağ’s recording is intimate and almost reticent – very striking in a restrained way. Oddly the cover of the cassette that I obtained in Urfa in 1987 (which I believe is the original 1981 release) has a photograph of Sağ (see photo below) that harks back to his arabesk days, dressed in yellow zip up blazer, slicked down hair and pencil moustache – totally belying the intimate sound of voice and bağlama on the recording. This would be the recording that began Sağ’s stylistic hegemony over the performance of Alevi music in the 1980s and 1990s. The iconography was yet to catch up.

sag_gurbeti_ben

Sağ recorded the deyiş again for the second of the Muhabbet series of recordings two or three years later. Muhabbet 2 is arguably the finest of the series in terms of its thematic strength which centres around the concept of gurbet – absence from one’s native place or home. Gurbeti ben mi yarattım is the final song on that recording although only three of the four verses are sung (the second is ommited) with Sağ, Musa Eroğlu and Muhlis Akarsu taking turns on the verses – a quite unusual approach for the Muhabbet series. Akarsu of course recorded the song but sadly, although a number of his recordings have been issued on CD, that one has not. However a recording of Akarsu performing it live is available on YouTube.

Gurbet is obviously the theme of the deyiş and this is deepened to almost ‘starkly bleak’ – thanks Tom Rapp! – realms with the addition of the theme of yokluk – which refers to absence, even to the degree of non-existance (it also has a meaning of poverty). I don’t think I’ve captured the full sense of yokluk so that will require working on. Another word to mention is sıla in the mahlas line which I have rendered as ‘returning’ but it really means return to family, friends and one’s native place – the opposite really of gurbet. A good translation here for imkân also rather eludes me. Having tried ‘possibilities’ it sounded too lumpen and ‘practicalities’ would be even worse. For the moment ‘chances’ it is. The deyiş is in the short koşma form (semai) with only 8 syllables per line which gives it a simple directness; but it is constructed with typical economy and finesse.

Muhlis Akarsu: Gurbeti ben mi yarattım

Translation: Paul Koerbin


Destitution has compelled me

Was it I who created the exile?

It came and took my youth

Was it I who created the exile?

I received neither letter nor news

Parted from my country and home

I felt the loss of all that was mine

Was it I who created the exile?

Evening comes and the shadow settles

Winds blow against my hope

Absence constrains my chances

Was it I who created the exile?

Akarsu, don’t think about returning

Don’t believe this isolation has passed

How I fell upon helplessness

Was it I who created the exile?

————————————————————————————

Turkish text from Muhlis Akarsu: yaşamı, sanatı, şiirleri ve dünya görüşü by Süleyman Zaman, 2006.

Yokluk beni mecbur etti

Gurbeti ben mi yarattım

Gençliğimi aldı gitti

Gurbeti ben mi yarattım

Ne mektup ne haber aldım

Yurdumdan yuvamdan oldum

Her şeyime hasret kaldım

Gurbeti ben mi yarattım

Akşam olur gölge basar

Umuduma yeller eser

Yokluk imkânımı keser

Gurbeti ben mi yarattım

Akarsu sılayı anma

Bu ayrılık geçti sanma

Çaresizdim geldim amma

Gurbeti ben mi yarattım

Türkü ‘Küstürdüm barışamam (dert bende)’

18 Thursday Feb 2010

Posted by koerbin in Translations

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Arif Sağ, Erzincan, Muhabbet, türkü, Translation

 

near_erzincan

View south towards mountains on approach to Erzincan

This song is a somewhat unusual inclusion here as my focus is Alevi deyiş while this is an anonymous türkü (folksong) from Erzincan. Not withstanding the fact that türkü is sometimes used as an all embracing term that includes deyiş, structurally they are different. This türkü has a metre of seven syllables while deyiş commonly have eleven or eight syllables. There is the refrain (bağlantı) which is more common in türkü and the absence of a mahlas. That said, the personal quality of this lyric suggests that a mahlas would not be out of place should an additional verse turn up. It is interesting that this is the opening song on the first of the renowned and influential Muhabbet series of recordings instigated in the mid-1980s by Arif Sağ, who also sings this song on that recording. On the evidence of his recordings Sağ has a particular fondness for songs from the Erzincan region, especially those from the Çayırlı (Erzincan) aşık Davut Sulari – and indeed he has said himself that even at the age of six he exerted himself to see Sulari (Değirmenin Bendine p. 40). This is perhaps not surprising given that Sağ is from Aşkale on the Erzincan side of Erzurum. By opening the Muhabbet series with this song Sağ declares his roots and the sound, mood and performance style of these recordings. This is one of the most bleak and beautiful Turkish folksongs, certainly as performed by Sağ. The source of the song, Erzincanlı Şerif (Tanındı) – although Bekir Karadeniz published a version with Sulari given as the source (Ela Gözlüm Türküler, p. 229) – performs it with a bit more swagger and with and instrumental colour (clarinet, violin, percussion etc). But it is in Sağ’s version that the stark and haunting qualities of the song are truly revealed.

This video shows Arif Sağ and Belkıs Akkale  performing the song (sort of) in 1983.

Küstürdüm barışamam (dert bende)

Translation: Paul Koerbin

I caused offence and cannot be reconciled

I have parted and cannot meet again

I opened my eye and I saw you

I cannot speak among strangers

I am suffering, I am unfortunate

I am suffering, I am unfortunate

Nothing can be done for the pain within

Like the birds without a nest

I’ve become scattered and confused

I pursued her to this mountain’s end

I awoke to the voice of my love

She is a partridge and I a hunter

And so I followed after her

I am suffering, I am unfortunate

I am suffering, I am unfortunate

Nothing can be done for the pain within

Like the birds without a nest

I became scattered and confused

I am estranged, my mate is estranged

My mate my fellow traveller is estranged

I do not grieve for my dying

My stone on the grave is abandoned

I am suffering, I am unfortunate

I am suffering, I am unfortunate

Nothing can be done for the pain within

Like the birds without a nest

I became scattered and confused

———————————————————————————-

Küstürdüm barışamam

Ayrıldım kavuşamam

Göz açtım seni gördüm

Yad ilen konuşamam

Dert bende kara bende

Dert bende kara bende

Eylenmez yare bende

Yuvasız kuşlar gibi

Olmuşum perâkende

Bu dağın ensesine

Uyandım yar sesine

Yar kekliktir ben avcı

Düşmüşüm ensesine

Dert bende kara bende

Dert bende kara bende

Eylenmez yare bende

Yuvasız kuşlar gibi

Olmuşum perâkende

Ben garip eşim garip

Eşim yoldaşım garip

Öldüğüme gam yemem

Mezarda taşım garip

Dert bende kara bende

Dert bende kara bende

Eylenmez yare bende

Yuvasız kuşlar gibi

Olmuşum perâkende

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