Popular Turkish Love Lyrics and Folk Legends

Karacaoğlan: A Bard’s Life of Love

Karacaoğlan A Bard’s Life of Love 67 Karacaoğlan A Bard’s Life of Love Karacaoğlan was a captivating folk poet who took pleasure in capturing young women’s hearts. He was handsome, with dark features and soulful eyes. His love poems are among the most enchanting in the Turkish language. He accompanied himself on a simple string instrument called the saz as he sang these poems. The poet improvised many of them when he was inspired by the delights of nature or the beauty of women. Some of Karacaoğlan’s lyrics are sad or satirical, though. This “bard of love” lived in the seventeenth century (no one really knows his years of birth and death). He was probably raised among the Turcoman tribes in the southern part of Anatolia, in the Taurus region. But during his long life—he lived to be seventy or possibly eighty—he roamed far and wide, singing his poems in innumerable places. He went to towns and villages in Anatolia and visited Egypt, Tripoli, and the Balkans. His fame spread throughout the rural areas of the Ottoman Empire. His life of love, poetry, and music became legendary. Today, people all over Turkey cherish his simple, melodious, touching lyrics. Few folk poets’ verses, songs, and stories are as popular as Karacaoğlan’s. In his youth, when Karacaoğlan was passing through one town giving his recitals, which held the local people spellbound, and strumming his saz, he came upon a rose-garden at the edge of the town. As he grew 68  Popular Turkish Love Lyrics & Folk Legends ecstatic from the vivid colors and the exquisite smell of the roses, his eyes suddenly fell on an indescribably beautiful girl who sauntered among the flowerbeds. She was smelling the roses with great sensual delight. She tenderly stroked some of them as she walked by. Karacaoğlan stood there, bewitched. He was already feeling in his heart the flames of love—and so, unable to restrain himself, he broke into song. It was a song of passion and yearning, a rhapsody of delirium. The lovely young woman took a few steps toward him and listened heart and soul. When the song was over, she started to walk away without uttering a word. Alarmed that he might never lay eyes on her again, the poet implored: “You are the loveliest of all lovely women. Please stay a while. At least tell me your name!” She hesitated. Then, in a barely audible voice, she said: “Elif.” Karacaoğlan was struck by the symbolic significance of “Elif,” a name common among the Turks for many centuries. It is derived from aleph, the first letter of the Arabic alphabet, with the numerical value of 1. Now, for the young poet, this slender girl was the beginning of all things. To him, she was the fount of youth and the source of love. Elif stood there, the epitome of gracefulness, dainty as a leaf. They exchanged a few polite words. Like everyone else in that part of the country, Elif had heard of Karacaoğlan, but this was the first time she had seen him or heard his singing. After a few sentences, she revealed that she was married and had children . Karacaoğlan was distressed—he had found and lost his beloved in the same instant. 70  Popular Turkish Love Lyrics & Folk Legends He also found out that she came from a well-to-do family and could read and write. She certainly would not respond easily to just any man’s advances. She frowned—and Karacaoğlan was shattered. Desperately in love at first sight, the young minstrel began to serenade this exquisite woman. He chanted a lyric poem that has enchanted the Turks for more than three centuries now. The poem celebrates her among the many splendors of nature and bemoans the pain inflicted by unrequited love: With its tender flakes, snow flutters about, Keeps falling, calling out “Elif . . . Elif . . . ” This frenzied heart of mine wanders about Like a minstrel, calling out “Elif . . . Elif . . . ” Elif’s robe is embroidered all over; Her eyes—like a baby goshawk’s—glower. She smells lovely like a highland flower, With those scents calling out “Elif . . . Elif . . . ” When she frowns, her glance is a dart that goes Into my heart: I fall into death’s throes...