Two minor works from Edip Harâbî – one on taking the mahlas ‘Harâbî’ and the other a (slightly vulgar) improvised satire

09 Thursday Jan 2025

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Ahmed Edip Harâbî (1853-1917) was one of the most important Bektashi poets of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He is known for his great ‘cycle of existence’ – or devriye – poems such as the one presented and translated by John Kingsley Birge in his seminal 1937 publication The Bektashi Order of Dervishes, beginning (in Birge’s translation):

Before the ‘B’ and the ‘E’ ever appeared

We are the beginning of the universe

Before any became joined to the face (of God)

We are the ‘distance of two bows or closer’

Or his great, long poem the ‘Vahdetname’ – a truncated version (about half) of which was included in translation in Jennifer Ferraro and Latif Bolat’s publication of ‘mystical rebel poems of the dervishes of Turkey’ titled Quarreling with God (Cloud Press, 2007). Both of these works survive with musical arrangments. The ‘Vahdetname’, as performed by Emekçi, was included on the groundbreaking album Kızılbaş prepared by Ulaş Özdemir for Kalan Müzik in 2009; as Özdemir has said, this was an album put together with the idea of initiating a series of albums to present the most ‘radical’ Alevi-Bektashi works yet recorded. (Kalan produced a second Kızılbaş named album in 2011 and in 2014-2015 a follow-up series of two double CDs titled Aleviler’e‘.) Moreover, as Özdemir says, this album “is from beginning to end a political work … [from] the viewpoint of Alevi-Bektashi communities in their everyday lives lives as well as in their faith”. It is weighty with works by Harâbî – as well as the Vahdetname there are two other works by him including the opening track given the title ‘Kızılbaş’ – as well as songs from other hard edged Alevi (Kızılbaş) poets such as Teslim Abdal and İbreti.

Harâbî was known to improvise many of his poems but he did leave behind a large manuscript collection amounting to around 519 poems. Interestingly, he included many brief comments about the context of a number of these improvisations. Harabi’s works range from the mystical to the satirical showing the influence of the greats from Yunus Emre to Pir Sultan to the biting satire of Kaygusuz Abdal. Harâbî is also notable for composing works in various identities including female identities using the names Lutfiye and Zehra Bacı (for more on Harabi’s writing as Bektashi ‘sisters’ see the 2017 paper by Ömer Ceylan titled: “Bektâşî diliye kadın müdâfaası” Edip Harâbî’nin Lutfiye ve Zehra bacılar ağzından yazdığı nefes).

The two works I have translated here are certainly minor works, but interesting in themselves. The first is one that attracted my attention when researching for my PhD on the mahlas – self-naming convention – in Alevi lyric song. In this poem Harâbî refers to his taking of the mahlas Harâbî – even giving dates, making the point that taking the mahlas is a transcendent act that connects to a tradition or master (in this case from Mehmed Ali Hilmi Dede Baba, who we met in my previous post being somewhat disparaged by Vahid Dede for his ‘syrupy’ musical influence). Harâbî includes notes about the dates and numbers in this work, saying this was spoken ‘nutku söylediğim‘ in 1318 [1902], he was born in 1269 [1853], he is currently 49 years of age, he was initiated into the dervish order – nasîb aldığım – at the age of 17 and has completed 32 years as an initiate.

The second poem – an improvised ghazel (or not a ghazel as the title suggests) – is something quite different. On my initial reading it reminded me of Catullus in his personally directed satire and vulgar insult. Such works as this certainly bring to life a real person behind some of the most sublime mystical works and indeed he uses his birth name ‘Edip’ as the mahlas in this poem. Harâbî includes a note to this poem to the effect: ‘said for an errant gentleman as needed’. He also provides a rather cryptic introductory note saying it is a published “improvisation … people who don’t know how to fly prevent flying birds from flying, and some people, the honorable ones, have made the wings of the flying birds fly more than the flying bird, for God’s sake! 12 March 1324 [1906]”.

Edip Harâbî : Peder ve vâlidem oldu bahâne

Translation: Paul Koerbin

My father and mother were the root cause

The restlessness of two oceans meeting

In one thousand two hundred and sixty-nine

Manifest I arrived and came into the world

I was freed from this world and I withdrew

At seventeen years of age from my birth

From Mehmed Ali Hilmi Dede Baba

Let there be thanks, I achieved the possibility

My name was Edip and I became Harabi

I was dust at the feet of the Enlightened

I became an opened book for them

Proclaiming ‘let there be love’ to the Knowing

——————————————————-

Original text from: Dursun Gümüşoğlu, Ahmed Edîb Harâbî Dîvânı: yaşamı ve tüm şiirleri (3rd ed. Can Yayınları 2013), p. 182

Peder ve vâlidem oldu bahâne

Merec-el-bahreyni yeltekıyâne

Bin iki yüz altmış dokuzda kâne

Eriştim zâhiren geldim cihâne

Berzahtan kurtuldum çıktım aradan

On yedi yaşında doğdum anadan

Mehmed Ali Hilmi Dede Baba’dan

Çok şükür hamd olsun geldim imkâne

Nâmım Edip idi Harâbî oldum

Erenlerin ayak türâbı oldum

Anınçün herkesin kitâbı oldum

Aşk olsun okuyan ehl-i irfâne

Edip Harâbî : Gazel değil Hazel

Translation: Paul Koerbin

Oh Kamil Efendi, why do you act so foolishly?

You go awry abandoning the right path

If your jacket is torn and button on your pants snaps off,

And you can’t find thread, with what would you stitch it?

If you have a secret place, fine, or if perhaps you don’t,

If you find a jenny, where would you screw it?

You can’t appreciate this poem being a small gem

And now you pervert this true word

You’ll destroy the garden of the perfect one

Is it apt, Edip, so you sow the seed of forgetfulness?

—————————————————————

Original text from: Dursun Gümüşoğlu, Ahmed Edîb Harâbî Dîvânı: yaşamı ve tüm şiirleri (3rd ed. Can Yayınları 2013), p. 483

Ey Kamil Efendi neye çahillik edersin

Doğru yolu terk eyleyerek eğri gidersin

Yırtılsa caket pantolonun düğmesi kopsa

İplik bulamazsın anı sen neyle dikersin

Gizli yeriniz varsa güzel, yok ise şayet

Bir kancık eşek bulsan onu nerde düzersin

Bu şi’ir-i güher paremi takdir edemezsin

Bu doğru sözü şimdi de sen eğriye çekersin

Kamil olanın tarlasını mahv edeceksin

Layık mı Edib böyle nisyan tohumu ekersin

Secret Turkish folk music – Vahid Dede on Alevi music

02 Thursday Jan 2025

Posted by koerbin in Uncategorized

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Alevi music, Translation, Vahit Lütfi Salcı

In the 1940s the Bektaşi poet, musician and scholar Vahid Lütfi Salcı published two short seminal monographs on Alevi music and culture. In 1940 he published Gizli Türk halk musikisi ve Türk musikisinde (armoni) meseleri (Secret Turkish folk music and the issues of ‘harmony’ in Turkish music) and in 1941 Gizli Türk dini oyunlar (Secret Turkish religious dances). In 2020 I published a translation of the first of the monographs in the journal Translingual Discourse in Ethnomusicology. That journal, which sadly now seems to have ceased publishing new issues, was a wonderful initiative of the Department of Musicology at the University of Vienna, aimed at encouraging discourse across language barriers by publishing English translations of important ethnomusicological works published in other languages and which may not have received as wide attention as desirable.

The work by Vahid Dede is important in many ways, not least for establishing the concept of Alevi music as a ‘secret’ or ‘hidden’ (gizli) part of Turkish folk music. It was the first substantial publication to focus on Alevi music per se and is all the more important since Vahid Dede was himself a Bektaşi and therefore writing with something of the authority of an ‘insider’. The work also aims to address what Vahid Dede refers to as misinterpretations of some earlier works of his – therefore this longer work to set the record straight. He argues that the music of the Bektaşi lodges has been corrupted by a “syrupy” urban, oriental style, particularly that as promulgated by Mehmet Hilmi Dede Baba; while the lost noble and dignified musical and performance character is still discernable in Alevi folk music. The publication includes musical examples and lyric examples from a number of poets including Harabi and Seyrani; and two lyrics from Pir Sultan Abdal (Gel güzelim kaçma bizden and Gelmiş iken bir habercik sorayım).

My translation and Vahid Dede’s original text are available in Volume 6 (2020) at the Translingual Discourse in Ethnomusicology website.

Meanwhile, I will include below my short “translator’s note” from the publication.

Translator’s note

At the beginning of the 1940s, the Istanbul-born poet, musician, teacher and scholar
Vahid Lütfi Salcı (1883-1950) published two monographs on Alevi music and
mystical dance (semah) – no more than short pamphlets – the first such monographs
in republican Turkey. The earlier of those two monographs is presented here in
English translation. Salcı’s studies promoted the concept of Alevi musical culture as
Turkey’s ‘secret’ folk music, although they were not in fact the first works to do so.
Salcı himself published several articles in the 1930s on Turkish folk music and Alevi
culture, including a substantial study in 1938 in the journal Ülkü Halkevi Dergisi
titled ‘Gizli Halk Musikisi’ (‘The Secret Folk Music’). Prior to this, the French
musicologist Eugene Borrel in 1934 published a paper in the Revue des
Études islamiques titled ‘Sur la musique secrète des tribus Turques Alévi’ presenting
similar conclusions (and in some parts similar descriptions) to Salcı’s later work. As
Borrel acknowledged, his work was largely influenced by materials supplied to him
by Salcı and by what he described as ‘un sensationnel article’ – referring to Salcı’s
series of articles on polyphonic folksong and harmony in folk music, published in
1933 in Milli Mecmua. Being Bektashi – he was also known as Vahid Dede – and
growing up with a forthright Alevi mother who rejected the offer for her son to study
as a hafiz (his father died when he was young), Salcı was well placed to gain access to
the secret rituals of Alevis and Bektashis as he travelled widely throughout Anatolia
and subsequently lived and worked in Thracian Turkey, particularly around Kırklareli.
As Salcı makes very clear in the work presented here, his purpose in publishing the
monograph is in no small part polemical. Firstly, it was to set the record straight
regarding ‘secret folk music’ and the issue of harmony in Turkish music, identifying
misinterpretations of his earlier works by those unqualified or without access to
materials. Secondly, it was a cri de coeur from the era of the newly established
Turkish Republic and following the period of Turkish language reform for the need to
abandon Ottoman music – which he recognised as beloved but also as a hindrance to
the young republic’s progress, reputation and place in the western world – in favour
of Turkish folk culture, particularly the pure expression of it found in the secret music
of Turkish Alevi tribal groups. In this context, Salcı calls for systematic action in
collecting folk material generally, especially the secret music culture of village
Alevis. The study itself is frequently rhetorical, with excursions into the description of
ritual (specifically that of the sofra feast and communal muhabbet gatherings); it also
presents some musical and textual materials, including examples from at least ten
lyric poems, together with some rather perfunctory analysis. In keeping with the
rhetorical purpose of the study, the language moves from the succinct and imperative
to the lyrical and prolix, providing significant challenges for the translator – a task not
helped by a number of printing and typographical errors in the original.

Paul Koerbin

The original 1940 publication and autograph by Vahid Lütfi Salcı (from my personal collection).

The sketch of Vahid Dede included in the image at the top of the post is taken from the book Vahit Lütfi Salcı’nın izinde by Mevlüt Yaprak (Ulusal: Edirne, 2003).

Pir Sultan Abdal ‘Gel güzelim kaçma bizden’

19 Friday Apr 2013

Posted by koerbin in Translations

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mahlas, Memet Fuat, Shifty lyric voice, Talat Halman, Translation, Yunus Emre

Here is a relatively simple but very beautiful lyric that makes an appearance in the earliest Pir Sultan anthologies of Ergun (1929) and Gölpınarlı and Boratav (1943). This is possibly an old lyric and related to the verses of Yunus Emre (see Izzet Zeki Eyuboğlu)- not unknown in the Pir Sultan canon. Later collections show little variation, not surprisingly with a short and perfect gem like this, though Fuad (1977 and 1999) has some slight variations, one of which I follow.

The two Fuad variations are in the first and last lines of the lyric. In the last line Fuad has kor olmuş (a glowing coal) rather than üfrülmüş, meaning to be blown upon, as for example a hot cinder. Fuad’s version seems to be a clarifying or simplifying variant and for reasons of assonance I have gone with üfrülmüş incorporating both variations into my rendering of the line. In the first line the earlier anthologist have benden rather bizden. Given the ‘shifty’ – to use Losensky’s term – nature of the lyric identity common in these lyrics this is not substantive change. I have used Fuad’s plural version as it aligns with the assonance of the lyric generally. Indeed this is one of the beauties of this lyric for, in the Turkish, the assonance and rhyme express the trance like mystical quality of the lyric. For this reason I have tried, rather more than I usually do, to retain something of this in the English. This does not always, or even often, work since rhyme, alliteration, assonance is much easier and more natural in Turkish with its vowel harmonisation. Talat Halman is the best at such renderings. I don’t try and replicate the Turkish, but where I have been able to bring in rhyme, near-rhyme and alliteration without diverging from the content of the lyric, I have done so.

Other translation issues to note include the rendering of ehli hal. In the context of the mystical path, ‘hal‘ has the meaning of a transcendent state, a mystical ecstacy even. Hence my version. Erkan means the main points, principles or fundamentals of religion. I did not want to refer to ‘fundamentalism’, perhaps for obvious reasons, so ‘liturgy’ seemed to fit the bill well with its additional help in the rhyme. Dilden dile means the same as dile düşmek: that is, to become the subject of common talk. I’m not sure I’ve rendered this entirely successfully, though I do get something of the sense and the alliteration was too felicitous to let go. Finally, elden ele causes some problems. It can literally mean ‘hand in hand’ though in this context ‘el‘ would seem to refer to land rather than hand. Fuad certainly indicates this meaning. I did contemplate a line reading ‘we will travel the land hand in hand’ having a bet each way, but perhaps wisely though better of it. My rendering as ‘we will travel the lands far and wide’ is perhaps not too removed from the literal and helps a little with the near-rhyme.

To return to the ‘shifty’ nature of the lyric persona common in Alevi lyric song, this is a great example of this device. The first two verses stress the first person plural (biz, –iz, –elim) then there is the sudden shift in the first line, the mahlas line, of the last verse to the first person singular (I am … ‘-im)) and then the second person (you, –sın) before finally returning to the first person plural. The functions of such shiftiness engaging the lyric voice of the poet with the performer and the audience, I have discussed in my PhD thesis.

Translation: Paul Koerbin

Come, do not desert us, my beauty

We are the nightingale, no stranger we

We are brothers in dervish ecstasy

We are the way within the liturgy

Let us converse on the states of joy

Let us talk ‘til tongues are tired

We will travel lands far and wide

We are the rose freshly opened

I am Pir Sultan, for what do you cry?

You shed tears of blood from your eye

What you expect from us, is it fire?

We are ashes of embers blown and burned

Gel güzelim kaçma bizden

Yad değiliz bülbülüz biz

Biz hâl ehli kardaşlarız

Erkân içinde yoluz biz

Söyleşelim hâlden hâle

Dilleşelim dilden dile

Biz gezeriz elden ele

Taze açılmış gülüz biz

Pir Sultan’ım ne ağlarsın

Gözünden kan yaş çağlarsın

Sen bizden ateş m’umarsın

Yanmış üfrülmüş külüz biz

Pir Sultan Abdal ‘Hû diyelim Gerçeklerin demine’

18 Wednesday Jan 2012

Posted by koerbin in Translations

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Derviş Ruhullah, Hallaj al-Manusr, har, John Kingsley Birge, mahlas, Sadık Hüseyin Dede, Translation, Ulaş Özdemir

The text used for the translation here comes from Gölpınarlı and Boratav’s 1943 work on Pir Sultan Abdal with the original sources given as the early 20^th century publication of Derviş Ruhullah and cönk in Gölpınarlı’s possession. Interestingly it does not appear in Ergun’s 1929 collection of Pir Sultan Abdal lyrics. A version, with remarkably little textual variation was recorded by Ulaş Özdemir for his 1998 album of Maraş Sinemilli deyişler called Ummanda. The version of this song was collected from Sadık Hüseyin Dede. The principal variation being in the opening lines, “Arzusun çektiğim gül yüzlü dostum / Erenlerin demi hurdan sayılır”, and in the form of the mahlas being Abdal Pir Sultan’ım, a form that seems rather typical of Pir Sultan deyiş collected from this region.

It is one of the category of Pir Sultan lyrics extolling sincere commitment to the dervish way. While conscious of the subtlety that will be lost, I have translated as ‘dervish’ – a term in English that has a wide embrace – a number of different terms that appear in the lyric, including gerçekler (the true ones), er (man, as in one who is brave or capable), aşık (devotee) and eren (one who has arrived at divine truth). Perhaps the most difficult line in the translation, not helped by its crowning a particularly paratactic verse, is “Biri kırktır kırkı birden sayılır” and I am not entirely comfortable with my rendering in terms of accuracy or eloquence – a work in progress. I make less apology for the rendering of the final line and the introduction of the word ‘prick’ with some of (if not all!) its English connotations (certainly in Australian idiom as someone who is a bit of a ‘waste of space’). The play on words is justified by the connection to the preceding diken (thorn) and the multiple connotations of har/hâr meaning thorn, something that pricks, to go wild, a donkey or foolish person, vile or contemptible. I have seen a version of the lyric with hal instead of har, though that versions seems to diminish the robustness of the lyric’s climax. This is a fine and robust lyric and this rendering seems apposite to my ear.

Finally a word on a couple of references that might be slightly confusing. Firstly, in the final verse (another with evident parataxis) Baghdad is referred to as the motherland (vatan) which may seem at odds with Pir Sultan’s Anatolian presence. In fact this is clearly a metaphorical reference, or perhaps more correctly metonymical. Baghdad, here referred to as a motherland, would seem to be a metonym for Pir Sultan’s identification the mystical tradition founded in Baghdad and particularly associated with Hallaj al-Mansur, who in the tradition is believe to have been martyred for his expression that he was the ‘truth’ (enel hak). Secondly, the reference to ‘Muhammed Ali’, which I follow without the insertion of a conjunction in my English rendering. To paraphrase John Kingsley Birge – whose remarkable 1937 work, while specifically based on western Anatolian and Albanian Bektashi tradition, rather than Alevi tradition, remains an essential text and of great value on such matters – this does not refer to a single personage of that name but as if two names of the once concept, which is the concept of Muhammad and Ali as complementary personifications representing the divine radiance (nur). Indeed the expression of trinity is also common in Alevi tradition, as in: Allah Muhammed Ali.

Pir Sultan Abdal: Hû diyelim Gerçeklerin demine

Translation: Paul Koerbin

Let us say ‘hu’ to the breath of the true dervishes

The breath of the true dervishes is deemed from the light

One who is brought in train to the Twelve Imams

Is counted among the beloved for Muhammad Ali

Who comes with sincere belief does not turn from this way

A friend does not know duplicity in his friend

Who does not see the dervish is truth does not see truth

His eyes watch but he is counted among the blind

The pleasure of the world was but three days, so they say

Following pleasure there is suffering, supposed

Of the speech and the sigh of the true dervishes

One of them is Forty – counted one among the Forty

If the true dervish stops at the halting place

If, burning like a candle, his sap dissolves

If he perceives, what remains is the true self

He is a dervish counted among the true dervishes

I am Pir Sultan Abdal – Baghdad the motherland

Passing from duplicity to unity

The one who joins the way of the dervishes sniping

Is the thorn in the way and counted among the pricks

——————————————————————————

Turkish text from Gölpınarlı and Boratav Pir Sultan Abdal (1943)

Hû diyelim Gerçeklerin demine

Gerçeklerin demi nurdan sayılır

On İk’İmam katarına düzelen

Muhammed Ali’ye yârdan sayılır

İhlâs ile gelen bu yoldan dönmez

Dost olan dostunda ikilik bilmez

Eri hak görmiyen Hakkı da görmez

Gözü bakar amma körden sayılır

Üç gün imiş şu dünyanın safası

Safasından artuk imiş cefası

Gerçek Erenlerin nutk u nefesi

Biri kırktır kırkı birden sayılır

Gerçek âşık menzilinde durursa

Çırağ gibi yanıp yağı erirse

Eksikliğin kend’özünde görürse

O da erdir gerçek erden sayılır

Pir Sultan Abdal’ım Bâğdattır vatan

İkilikten geçip birliğe yeten

Erenler yoluna kıyl ü kal katan

Yolun dikendir hârdan sayılır

Latife Bacı (Melûli) ‘Mey içtim sarhoşum bugün’

26 Saturday Feb 2011

Posted by koerbin in Translations

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Aynur Haşhaş, deyiş, Edip Harabi, Latife, mahlas, Melûli, Translation

Aşık Melûli is surely one of the master Alevi poets of the twentieth century. Indeed his life spans nine decades of the century. Born in 1892 his real name was Karaca and was educated both by an Arab hoca and for a decade in an Armenian school in Afşin. As well as his mother tongue Turkish he spoke Arabic, Armenian, Farsi and Ottoman Turkish. He died in 1989 aged 97. The poem here bear’s the mahlas of a female persona, Latife, remarkable strategy Melûli used as early as 1947, to transcend gender roles and express his concept of the sacredness and creative power of women. (See the book by Özpolat and Erbil cited below, p. 449.)

The poem is fairly straightforward in regards to translation, although difficult choices are necessarily made that colour the interpretation of the translation. One of the challenges is whether or not to translate ‘Pir’. I have a strong inclination to leave such terms untranslated since they carry so much culturally specific meaning. It has the sense of teacher, master, saint, guide and the head of a dervish order. In this version I have however committed a translation, opting for ‘Dervish’ which I expect to carry various connotations for the reader in English. The use of the word ‘Pir’ is just one expressive element that points to a mystical reading; yet one of the great characteristics of the song, particularly emphasised by the choice of mahlas, is the possible wordly interpretation. It is certainly this position that can be seen in Aynur Haşhaş’s recording while performed to the classic Alevi melody she replaces ‘Pir’ with the more ambiguous terms ‘canım’ and ‘yar’.

There is no doubt this lyric is provocative and forthright. Latife does not avoid the language of religion saying her Kabaa (Mecca) is the tavern (meyhane). She dismisses the intolerant as ‘barking guard dogs’ (kelb rakibin ürümesi). I have tried to render the implied intimidation of the latter line with the idea of ‘patrolling hounds’.

A word should be said about the form of the mahlas ‘Latife’m’ which perhaps should read ‘my Latife’. However, convention suggest that the mahlas is not understood as a possessive construct but an expression of person (be it first, second or third). So forms such as this are understood to be a contraction of the first person verb to be, that is ‘Latife’yim’.

I should also note that we are fortunate to have an excellent introduction in English to Melûli by Hans-Lukas Kieser in his book chapter titled: Alevilik as song and dialogue: the village sage Melûli Baba (1892-1989). Kieser reveals Melûli as a remarkable figure of provincial ‘enlightenment’ in the late Ottoman period. The principal source for Melûli’s life and work and from where my text comes from remains the book Melûli divanı ve Aleviliğin tasavvufun Bektaşiliğin tarihçesi by Latife Özpolat (herself) and Hamdullah Erbil.

Postscript: a note and reminiscence on the picture. I generally try to use pictures from my travels in Turkey that have some tangential (and not always obvious) connection to the text. That may be true of this picture too, but it is also a small nostalgic reflection on fondly remembered friendly cheap workers’ hotels that could be found in Sirkeci in the 1980s and early 1990s. Now sadly replaced by poorly gilded (and much more expensive) tourist hotels. This was a room in one of my favourites, the original (and long departed) Otel Fahri on İbni Kemal Cad. when it was a quiet street (photo taken in early 1995). On one occasion, perhaps the time this photo was taken, there was a night time tavern restaurant around the corner squeezed in on Ebussuut Cad. near the corner of Ankara Cad. where gypsy musicians from Şişli would pass through – with much jolity, bonhomie and much drinking of rakı. When I visited the following year the tavern was gone, without trace (like something out of Robert Irwin’s Arabian Nightmare – but that is another story) and Necmettin Erbakan was Prime Minister. I am not necessarily drawing a connection, but the belly dancer on the İbo Şov – Tatlıses is the great ‘Vicar of Bray’ of Turkish culture – also disappeared at this time, as I recall. The eagle-eyed will notice some travelling essentials in the picture – bottle of water (none other than ‘Sultan Su’), chocolate, cassette walkman – remember those! – leather jacket, tissues and book which, if I must own up, was an old edition of John Buchan’s Greenmantle that, as is my practice, I donated to a hotel draw somewhere down the track in eastern Turkey).

Latife Bacı: Mey içtim sarhoşum bugün

Translation: Paul Koerbin

Today I drank wine and was drunk

I swear, I cannot hold my tongue

Today I was so pleased with my Dervish

I swear, I forgot all about death

The world appears completely empty

My Dervish brings me pleasure

He is exuberant whenever he loves

I swear, I love my Dervish

The morsel the Dervish proffers is permitted for me

The tavern is my pilgrim’s kabaa

The barking of the patrolling hounds

I swear, does not block my way

Let the Dervish come and be cross with me

Let my arm embrace his neck

Let the arms that are drawn away be broken

I swear, I cannot withdraw my arm

If I enter his embrace uncovered

If he sleeps and I love silently

If he awakes and he speaks rudely

I swear, I cannot withdraw my hand

I am Latife I am so shameless

I love greatly and I am so brazen

I know nothing of shame and honour

I swear, I will pluck my rose

———————————————————————————————–

Original Turkish text from Melûli divanı ve Aleviliğin tasavvufun Bektaşiliğin tarihçesi by Latife Özpolat and Hamdullah Erbil (2006)

Mey içtim sarhoşum bugün

Tutamam dilim vallahi

Pir’imle çok hoşuma bugün

Unuttum ölüm vallahi

Dünya tümden boş geliyor

Pir’im bana hoş geliyor

Her sevdikçe cüş geliyor

Severim Pir’im vallahi

Helal bana Pir lokması

Hacc-ı kâbem meyhanesi

Kelb rakibin ürümesi

Kesemez yolum vallahi

Varsın banan Pir darılsın

Kolum boynuna sarılsın

Çözülen kollar kırılsın

Çözemem kolum vallahi

Girsem koynuna gömleksiz

Uyusa ben sevsen sessiz

Uyansa dese edepsiz

Çekemem elim vallahi

Latife’m çok hayâsızım

Çok severim çok yüzsüzüm

Ar namus yok habersizim

Çalarım gülüm vallahi

Pir Sultan Abdal ‘Gelin canlar bir olalım’

12 Thursday Aug 2010

Posted by koerbin in Translations

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Aşık Ali İzzet, Aşık Sıtkı, Gölpınarlı, Pertev Naili Boratav, Translation, Zafer Gündoğdu

One of the most renowned Pir Sultan songs and one of the most political being something of an anthem for the political left from the 1970s. Performances more commonly only include the first, second and last verses, leaving out the more overtly aggressive third and fourth verses. While all of the Pir Sultan lyrics can only be considered to be attributed to him this lyric is perhaps one of the more doubtful and some assert the lyric originates with Aşık Sıtkı. Muhsin Gül in his book on Sıtkı includes two lyrics that seem to be models for this song, one of which is very similar although it does not include the outright injuction to murder the Sultan (Padışah) and is in fact a more sophisticated lyric. But whether Sıtkı’s is a reworking of the Pir Sultan original or the other way around can hardly be established definitely. Hayrettin İvgin in his 1976 book on Aşık Sıtkı Pervane states that is is a Pir Sultan lyric, though this seems based on the inclusion of the lyric in Gölpınarlı and Boratav’s 1943 book on Pir Sultan and İvgin’s book predates the more substantial work by Gül. The source of the text given by Gölpınarlı and Boratav is again Aşık Ali İzzet Özkan who obtained it from a mecmua (manuscript collection) belonging to one Muharrem from the village of İğdiş in the Şarkışla region of Sivas.

In regards to translation issues, choice of language will determine the degree of political and religious interpretation. For example, how to translate ‘canlar’? Literally this means ‘souls’ but can be understood as ‘friends’ or ‘brothers’ or ‘companions’. Given the political nature of the lyric and its adoption as such in popular culture, I have preferred ‘comrades’. ‘Münkir‘ also presents some problems. This means ‘deniers’ and may be understood in a religious context. Finding the term ‘deniers’ a bit cumbersome I have tried ‘false hearted’. References to the Umayyad caliphs Yezid and Mervan (Marwan) are fairly straightforward – although it is uncertain whether the reference to Mervan is to the short rule of Marwan I or the last Ummayad caliph Marwan II, though more probably is a reference to the despised Ummayad caliphs generally – as these caliphs in their actions of opposition to Shi’a and in the murder of Hüseyin represent the essence of treachery and for the Alevi these names are metonyms for treachery and falsehood and are used as invectives. To convey this adequately in the English remains a challenge, perhaps.

This song presents a good example of the complexities of expressions of identity in Turkey through the shared and yet specific heritage of Turkish Alevi culture. For example this song, besides its historical political associations, was one used to dramatic effect in at the Cologne Bin Yılın Türküsü event at the beginning of 21st century – an event asserting Alevi identity in a transnational context – see video here; while it is also performed on Turkish Radio and Television in the context of the standard national folk orchestra and choir in a concert expressing a particular musical mode – see this video. Interestingly, the conductor in both instances is Zafer Gündoğdu and the musical arranger for the latter the Alevi virtuoso Erdal Erzincan. Both versions include only the first, second and final verse.

Pir Sultan Abdal: Gelin canlar bir olalım

Translation: Paul Koerbin

Come comrades and let us be as one

Let us strike swords against the false hearted

Let us avenge the blood of Hüseyin

I put my trust in God

Let us bind ourselves together

Let us murmur like the waters

Let us take up the march

I put my trust in God

Let us unfurl the banner of red

Let the time of deceitful Yezids pass

In our hand is the dagger of passion

I put my trust in God

Let us strike at the race of Mervan

Let us ask for the blood of Hüseyin

Let us kill the Padishah

I put my trust in God

I am Pir Sultan, I’m at boiling point

The false hearted shall be driven mad

What is destined shall come to pass

I put my trust in God

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Original Turkish text from Gölpınarlı and Boratav (1943)

Gelin canlar bir olalım

Münkire kılıç çalalım

Hüseynin kanın alalım

Tevekkeltü taâlâllah

Özü öze bağlıyalım

Sular gibi çağlıyalım

Bir yürüyüş eyliyelim

Tevekkeltü taâlâllah

Açalım kızıl sancağı

Geçsin Yezidlerin cağı

Elimizde aşk bıçağı

Tevekkeltü taâlâllah

Mervan soyunu vuralım

Hüseynin kanın soralım

Pâdışahın öldürelim

Tevekkeltü taâlâllah

Pir Sultan’ım geldi cûşa

Münkirlerin alkı şaşa

Takdir olan gelir başa

Tevekkeltü taâlâllah

Kul Himmet ‘Allah bir Muhammed Ali diyerek’ (Düaz-ı imam)

23 Sunday May 2010

Posted by koerbin in Translations

≈ 1 Comment

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Arif Sağ, Cahit Öztelli, Düaz-ı imam, Kul Himmet, Shahrbanu, Tolga Sağ, Translation, Şehriban

While working on a chapter of my PhD devoted to identity issues concerning Kul Himmet and Kul Himmet Üstadım for the thesis it seemed a good time to introduce Kul Himmet to the blog. Kul Himmet ranks with Şah Hatayi and Pir Sultan as the third in the triumvirate of great lyric and didactic Alevi poets. Even less about Kul Himmet is known than of Pir Sultan and certainly Hatayi (Shah Ismail). We do generally understand from the internal evidence of the deyişler that Kul Himmet was the murid (disciple) of Pir Sultan and provides the connection to another great aşık of Alevi ritual culture, Kul Hüseyin; also that he was educated. I will leave the issue of Kul Himmet Üstadım for another day.

This düaz-ı imam is another favourite of Alevi expressive culture. In performance it is sung to a powerful and deeply mysterious melody, somewhat unusually for Alevi music using a garip tetrachord for the lower part of the melody; although this modulates to the hüseyni ayağı for the third, sixth and ninth verses. The tune can be heard in the opening of the unbearably tragic film Journey of Hope.

The main difficulties in translation arise from names and some specific Alevi concepts that are reluctantly translated. For example, what to do with ‘erenler‘? My instinct is to leave as Erens, but I try a translation of ‘enlightened‘. A good translation for ‘vird‘ continues to elude. I have succombed to ‘prayer’ but not happily. This düaz goes beyond the twelve imams and brings in other identities such as Kanber, Salman and Fatma and the especially interesting Bibi Shahrbanu (Şehriban). Will perhaps add some explanation later.

Interestingly the earliest printed version of this text in Besim Atalay’s Bektaşilik ve Edebiyat (1924; republished in modern Turkish translation by Vedat Atila in 1991) does not take the form of a düaz-ı imam and does not include reference to the twelve imams though it does retain the references to Fatma, Şehriban and İmam Hüseyin. The text translated here is from Cahit Öztelli’s Pir Sultan’ın Dostları (2nd ed 1996) with one change to the order of the verses. The verse beginning “İmam Zeynel paralandı, bölündü” appears in Öztelli as the second last verse. Following the recordings by Arif and Tolga Sağ I have moved this to the fifth verse where it makes more sense logically and chronologically in respect to the invocation of the imams.

Kul Himmet ‘Ali bir Muhammed Ali diyerek’ (Düaz-ı imam)

Translation: Paul Koerbin

Every morning the birds sound together

Saying Allah is one, Muhammad, Ali

The nightingale begins a lament for the rose

Saying Allah is one, Muhammad, Ali

Our fate shall turn upon the direction we face

Veysel Karani went to the land of Yemen

We are bees and we fly off for almighty manna

Saying Allah is one, Muhammad, Ali

Let us endure mourning for the Imams

Hear the true voice of the enlightened

Imam Hasan drank the poisoned challice

Saying Allah is one, Muhammad, Ali

The one who seeks is sifted through a fine mesh

The one who believes turns to the True way

Shah Hüseyin was soaked in scarlet blood

Saying Allah is one, Muhammad, Ali

Imam Zeynel was torn to pieces and portioned

Humble respect was given to the Imam Bakir

The essence of direction was given to Cafer-i Sadık

Saying Allah is one, Muhammad, Ali

The heart is a bird’s ramshackle nest

The Shah’s desire become our prayers

The prayer of Kâzım, Musa, Ali Rıza

Saying Allah is one, Muhammad, Ali

Shah Taki and Naki went on as light

Hasan-ül Askerî went on as the brave

The Mehdi went on mysterious in the cave

Saying Allah is one, Muhammad, Ali

Kanber, Salman, Fatma stood for the prayer

Shahrbanu was stripped and mounted on the camel

Jesus was distressed and passed unto the air

Saying Allah is one, Muhammad, Ali

Four books were written and passed to four faiths

The Kuran became Muhammed’s prayers

Kul Himmet passed to the sorrow of his saint

Saying Allah is one, Muhammad, Ali

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Original text from Cahit Öztelli Pir Sultan’ın Dostları (2nd ed. 1996)

Her sabah her sabah ötüşür kuşlar