“My Soul Has Caught Your Scent”: Verses By Yûnus Emre, (Anatolia, XIII-XIV Centuries)
Giampiero Bellingeri Prof.Dr.
Giampiero Bellingeri is a retired scholar from Venice, Italy. The lines of research followed by G. Bellingeri are: Turkology, Turkish literature in Iran and Transcaucasia (16th-20th century); the Turkish-Venetian cultural relations in the 18th century; Turkish-Russian literary relations, in the Caucasus and in the Central Asian steppes, in the Tsarist and Soviet times; investigations into the literary texts in Ottoman Turkish present in the libraries and archives of Venice (the Turkish glosses of Alexander's novel from the Hellenic Institute of Venice; the Turkish-Venetian cordiform globe by “Hajji Ahmed” from the Marciana National Library); the descriptions and news of the Turkish peoples of the Caucasus and Central Asia in Venetian sources after Marco Polo and until the fall of the Republic of Venice (all reflected in his publications); as well as contemporary Turkish literature, of which among other things he has translated and made known in Italy authors such as Orhan Pamuk, Yahya Kemal, Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu, Orhan Veli, Mario Levi, Sunay Akın, Oğuz Atay. Tezer Özlü, Sait Faik Abasıyanık.
Email: giambell@unive.it https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3015-7522
How to cite: Bellingeri, G. (2021). “My soul has caught your scent”: Verses by Yûnus Emre, (Anatolia, XIII-XIV centuries). Belt & Road Initiative Quarterly, 2(4), 52-60.
ABSTRACT The year 1321 was the date of the departure of two giant poets from this world at the two most important points of the Silk Road. Dante Alighieri in Italy and Yunus Emre in Anatolia said goodbye to this problematic world together, after a long and fruitful lives. Both were poets with deep feelings about the meaning of life, what it means to be human, and the afterlife. The year 2021 is the 700th anniversary of their farewell to this world. While the Italian nation celebrates the life of Dante, Turkey is busy with the celebrations of Yunus Emre and the Turkish Language. Playing an important role in bringing these celebrations together, Prof. Giampiero Bellingeri is an important academic who has spent a lifetime on Turkish culture. We hope that this essay, submitted by Prof. Bellingeri at the event organized by Yunus Emre Institute in Rome in 2019, comparing
Dante and Yunus Emre will greatly enrich the Yunus Emre special issue of BRIQ. (BRIQ )
YÛNUS IS A TURKISH VARIANT OF THE local people and Christians.
name ‘Jonah’/‘Ionas’, the prophet who finds him- Yunus Emre, the “troubadour”, believed in God
self out of divine goodness on the shore of a landing and was agitated by passion. To remedy this, he sung
between one sea and another, after a journey and a stay with the passion of his own wanderings through the
in the belly of a whale. “Our Yunus” (Yunus Emre), territories and through the itineraries of his faith.
according to the most widespread rumour about his According to the custom of the adepts, he carried
origins, was born in central Anatolia, in Sarıköy / out humble tasks for the brotherhoods at the con-
Eskişehir, in the second half of the 13th century and vent of Taptuk Emre. After forty years of service at
died in 1321. He is known for always finding himself the convent, he evolved and got emancipated by the
on the “lip” between one coast and another. On the master Taptuk. Freed from the service, his language
lip between the opposite shores of two worlds, but, melted, disseminated sounds and grains of poetry,
specifically, on the land of Anatolia that in his time until everything became fixed on paper sheets. Ac-
suffered so many upheavals: the disruptive coming cording to the tradition, these sheets were set on fire
of the Mongols (1243), the weakening of the Seljuk by jealous rivals. Conceivably, it is in that thick smo-
Turks (who arrived from the south-eastern shores of ke of his own burnt verses that Yunus finds himself
the Caspian, through Iran, 11th-12th centuries), and immersed, as he sighs in one of his verses:
the collapse, now begun, of the Byzantines. “(...) Let me burn in a thick smoke, and that in
For the Turks/the Turkmen, it was a troubled that smoke I sing like a nightingale,
time. Arriving in Anatolia, they imposed a deman- And let me appear in the friendly garden, always
ding presence on the local populations, who were open, and never faded, never ...”
based there for centuries as subjects, first to the em- (Toprak, 1960: 67Toprak (1960). The source article does not provide a separate full bibliographic entry for this citation.)
perors of Byzantium, then to new local princes. In There are two works attributed to Yunus: a Dîvân /
the process of settlement, the Turks suffered the sho- “Canzoniere” and a “Book of Advice”, Risâletü'n Nus-
cks and consequences caused by raids and invasions. khiyye, which can be placed around 1307. From this
They were dominant, of course, during the process of last work we quote the opening and follow it with an
Turkishization and Islamization of that area, but still essay elaborating on how the formal and expressive
found companionship through misfortune with the setting differs from that of the hymns chosen below:
“In the name of God, the Clement, the Merciful: See the arcane prodigy, it is the work of the Lord, To fire and water and earth and air he said “be!”. In the name of God he ruled, and land is ready there, And behold the mountain erupts and immediately rises. Of earth and water he kneads a rudiment at the base, And he names him, he imposes the name of Adam on him. A breath of wind, a shiver runs through the dough, From there comes, you know, the offspring of Adam.
And He comes, places it to cook, and when Prophet Jonah’/‘Ionas’ finds himself out of divine
goodness after a journey and a stay in the belly of a It is cooked well, the spirit is infused into that body, whale. (Flickr, 2018Flickr (2018). The source article does not provide a separate full bibliographic entry for this citation.) With the injunction that the soul penetrate it:
Supreme order is that, ethereal care! proceeding on the Way, the one that leads to Knowledge
The soul takes on an effigy, it is filled with light, and draws on the mysterious supreme Truth with immer-
And the semblance proclaims itself grateful, and de sion and self-forgetfulness.
ferential. Yunus’ journey takes place among the disasters, events,
Praise be to that majestic Power: and general struggles of the Turks and populations who
You know and you can do a thousand others just live and suffer in those places he travelled. He embraces
like me. the pain and sorrow of human beings: creating a universal
There are four intrinsic qualities of clay: drama rather than an exaltation of Turkishness and Islam,
Firmness, good disposition, trust in God, and benefit. at that time surely victorious and fighting for expansion.
“Travails” are a polysemous concept that in some he-
Four states that came with water: gemonic idioms means “journey”. Similarly, a Turkish
Purity, profusion, grace in unity ...” exhortation says, “the traveller must set out on his way”,
(Tatçı, 1991: 27-29). on such a journey where the only companion along the
hard way is fatigue, which remains faithful until the loss
The “Book of Advice” is didactic by nature and by gen- of one’s own shadow. The way is not drawn straight, it is
re, and in it we do not find those thrills so abundant in the traced in a tortuous way and the destination is reached by
hymns to Love. Both are composite books, open to conti- narrow paths.
nuous insertions, variations, and external “contributions”. Along those rough paths, one could meet other peop-
It is a corpus that is poetic, physical, ardent, indefinite, le, equally lost and disoriented. The verses speak as if they
and leavening. We can see a kind of mysticism animated were disoriented themselves – they embody an existential
by Neo-Platonism, which receives and captures the refle- and human condition expressed in verse, in lines, in sty-
ctions, the Light of God in creation, in the phenomenal listic registers, in human languages. Languages differ in
world. From here, the poor dervish, cultivating himself, words, but not so much in the foreshortening of language,
is seeking himself in an inner journey under the guidance which follows curves, road sections, which are by fate and
of the Master and aspires to divine Beauty and Love as mind summoned to touch and cross each other. Finally,
mirrors to each other. He is always obeying the Law and the meanings convey into common furrows:
“We now were going over the lonely plain ly, in their own lexicon, the Turkish linguistic lineage
as one who to a road he lost returns that dates back to saint Ahmed Yasevi’s (Central Asia,
and, till he find it, seems to go in vain.” 12th century) textual and poetic applications.
Our Yunus Emre is quite modern in this sense; he
(Dante Alighieri, Divine Comedy, Part II-Purgatory, gathers and welcome other “Emre” under his cloak,
line:118-120, see Dante, 2013: 426) following a practice of Islamic propaganda of religion,
In those times, poets shared more than a few ana- but, even more, of a faith. In recent Turkish history,
logies. Thus, the images of Yunus and Dante can be Yunus has become a flexible bow, bent to different
compared and (depending on the parameters, align- directions of the arrow: nationalistic, republican (for
ments, and weights attributed, with the measures app- the “pure” language, not corrupted by Arab-Persian
lied to the judgments on their personalities) projected formulations, which were once thought to be “foreign”
onto each other as earthly and sanguine human beings, to authentic Turkishness), secular, humanistic, and Is-
at least for this verse that articulates the breakthrough lamic.
between asceticism and moralism. For the supporters of this essential religious aspe-
Both wander in exile on a mission. They are pilgrims, ct, Yunus’ humanism does not and must not resemble
sharing tensions and intentions of the terrestrial and Western humanism, in which love for man is limited
earthly language, which provides life and meaning to to man, making it blasphemous and incomplete throu-
the soul, allowing them to physically furrow it by mar- gh its failure to recognise the true Love for the Friend,
king and marking it. They teach the soul to speak a lan- the Lord, the Truth! In fact, Yunus dissolves the lite-
guage that is alive and “vernacular”. rary language of Western Turkish, of Rûm / Rome (the
second Rome, once Byzantine, then Ottoman, Rûm;
Yunus’ humanism does not and must Anatolia was renamed Rûm from Arabs and Persians,
not resemble Western humanism, in neighbours of the Greek-Roman “Romei”, and later of
which love for man is limited to man, the Turkish-Ottoman “Rûmîs”), and the affectionate
making it blasphemous and incomplete references, the tributes of gratitude, of immediate sy-
through its failure to recognise the true mpathy expressed to him by the greatest contempo-
Love for the Friend, the Lord, the Truth! rary poets that are symptomatic, explicit.
On our side, we remain fixed to observe the sign,
Yunus’ language can appear simple, but it is not or the omen of a new celestial vault, compared to
deprived of concepts or imagery capable to perceive this one here, as old as the mutable, treacherous,
precisely sensitive figures. He is not only conceptual and elusive earth. The sky, even in these Turkish
either, for he is an interpreter and a composer of pra- verses of Yunus, protects and envelops in faith,
yers, poems, and invocations. He avoids euphemisms, redemption, and remission the derelict bodies of
the flattening of discourse, by using rough-spoken pilgrims, orthodox, tinged with heresy or linked
language infused with precise terminology, technica- to Haji Bektash-i Veli (mystical master of the 13th
lity, and philosophical conceptuality. His high hymns century). In that great flowing of good, ideas of the
are raised on a harsh path leaning towards doctrinaire “kavşak” - a word that has its roots in “reuniting”
models already made solemn in Arabic and Persian, after the detachment - there are many lost and stun-
standing alternative to them and able to thrive, fluent- ned dervish-singers.
At the crossroads of journeys where thoughts take off, where plenty are the meetings and gatherings, and where perhaps a woman appears to help the needy (“moon that rises from the earth”, says Yunus) -the image of the moon rising from the earth translates Yunus’ yearning for a higher love.
“Give me a love, oh my Lord, that where I am, my
sense will kidnap me, on the spot, Dante Alighieri. (Pixabay, 2020Pixabay (2020). The source article does not provide a separate full bibliographic entry for this citation.)
Let me lose myself, let me go round and round loo-
king for myself, without being able to find myself again, “Even such was I at that new apparition;
To me, take myself away, make me empty, and in the I wished to see how the image to the circle
meantime fill me with yourself ... ” Conformed itself, and how it there finds place;
(Toprak, 1960Toprak (1960). The source article does not provide a separate full bibliographic entry for this citation.) But my own wings were not enough for this,
Had it not been that then my mind there smote
This we read in one of his vows, expressed between A flash of lightning, wherein came its wish.
purification, intoxication, and reward. Now, could it not Here vigour failed the lofty fantasy:”
also be that in this portentous transmutation of semblan-
ces, invoked by certain poets, mystics or not, we end up (Dante, Paradise, Canto XXXIII, line: 136-142, see
increasingly resembling each other, men and God, earth Dante, 2013: 1007
and heaven? In short, when that heavy and now cleansed Therefore, Dante’s height and Yunus’s poetic
“I” comes out of itself, does it lighten so much it is able to impulses demonstrate the qualities of humility and
join the other “I” of purified brothers to stand together humbleness required when dealing with the divi-
on the steps of a Staircase?1 Once the ancient, decrepit, ne revelation: they both belong to a monotheistic
and worn-out features have been lost and transmuted, inheritance. Just when the weakening of the ima-
wouldn’t it be possible to find oneself under, or with, gination is declared, the strength to approach the
longed-for shared features? Those that would be found most difficult expressions related to the contemp-
in the confusion and bewilderment of minds? lation of the essence of God take place:
That would be a clumsy approach, almost an imitati- “O how all speech is feeble and falls short on of Yunus’ language in the echo of a very high Dante: Of my conceit, and this to what I saw is such both “unable” - mixed with a multitude of followers and ’tis not enough to call it little!” self-styled aphasics - to express the metaphysics of divi-
ne light, made blessed through their inability to express (Dante, Paradise, Canto XXXIII, line: 121-122,
“vulgarly” or popularly the metaphysics of divine light: see Dante, 2013: 1007).
1 This is a reference to the Book of the Ladder of Mohammed (Kitab al-Miraj), a well-known work for the questions that its discovery raised decades
ago among scholars of Dante, Arabists, and philologists. It is a famous and popular Arabic tale with great implications for the culture, the troubadour, and the mystical, religious, and literary expressions of southern Europe. The Book narrates the journey of the Prophet Mohammed, led by the archangel Gabriel, to Heaven and Hell. The work, translated from Arabic into Spanish by the Jewish scientist Abraham Elfaquim, was then rendered in Latin and French by Bonaventure of Siena, secretary of King Alfonso X, “the Wise”. Dante could have known this book thanks to Brunetto Latini. Hence possibly the analogies between “La Scala” and “the Comedy”, and between the accents of Yunus and Dante, who was never foreign to Muslim culture, or to that culture that has been revisited and enriched by Muslims.
After all, even though Dante paints a murky picture of of divine goodness on the shore of a landing between one
the Prophet of Islam, he knew, in that cultural climate, how sea and another, after a journey and a stay in the belly of
to outline his own discourse by following and considering the whale, would come to colour himself of the same light
the thoughts of the philosophers and Muslim poets who that colours Yunus and Dante.
return to the tested sensibilities and reworked what they For “That Circle which appeared to be conceived wit-
borrowed from Christians and the first Jewish monothe- hin Thyself as a Reflected Light,
ists. In this case, as already mentioned, we refer to the path when somewhat contemplated by mine eyes, within It-
traced of the nocturnal ascents to heaven, to Paradise, on self, of Its own very colour,
the Staircase structured by the steps on which the angels to me seemed painted with our Human Form; whence
stand out in order. Yunus’ leaps of love move along the air wholly set upon It was my gaze”
streams of this earthly climate where moral re-education (Dante, Paradise, Canto XXXIII, line: 127-132, see
takes place from the very modest yet shiny sod. Dante, 2013: 1007)
They are poetic leaps towards God who fills with im- Now let’s move on to some Choices from the Songbo-
mensity the meaning of the inadequate word, the meaning ok. (Mini-Antoloji)
of the language of love spoken down here on earth, from Give Me A Love the earth. His poetic raving, sensible even in his raptures,
is never in vain: for they flow like an intricate path, troub- Give me a love, oh my Lord, that where I am, my
led, leading far away. The meeting of the dazzling though- wits steal me, on the spot,
ts, of the enlightened essences of such individuals (who Make me lose myself, go round and round looking
walk on the thin and sharp bridge that connects the jour- for me, without being able to find me again,
ney to exile and climb the ladder that rests on the ground, To me, take myself away, make me empty, and in the
on the rock, rising to the sky), would have occurred along meantime fill me with yourself,
the lines of the vision of poets. With fixed gaze, they ai- So dazed you have to reduce me, confused to the
med at God and, when struck by lightning, resembled and point that I no longer distinguish the night and the day,
blended in with the divine. I will nourish only one desire of you, until the
appearance is lost and transmuted,
“That Circle which appeared to be conceived within The soul has caught your scent, from now on it turns
Thyself as a Reflected Light, its back on the world,
when somewhat contemplated by mine eyes, within It- Your place is never clear, and here I am wandering
self, of Its own very colour, among the flames,
to me seemed painted with our Human Form; whence My liver drowns in my blood, how could I calm the
wholly set upon It was my gaze” whine ?!
(Dante, Paradise, Canto XXXIII, line: 127-132, see Let me burn in a thick smoke, and that in that smoke
Dante, 2013: 1007). I sing like a nightingale,
And let me pop up in the friendly garden, always
Immersed in the light, which is colouring them with its open, and never faded, never.
own uniquely composed colour, the poets were transfigu- If I express that state of mine to others, there are those
red by its own essence, as they continued to talk to each who insult me, and there are those who laugh, insolent,
other about Love, calling us to listen. At least I burn in the pains, without humiliating
Thus, Jonah / Ionas, the prophet who finds himself out myself to tell,
Martyr I am, lift me up that gallows, and there you Love of You Took Me Away From Me
manifest yourself,
I sacrifice this soul, my love I never deny, Love of you took me away from me,
Love is the cure for this pain, on the way of love For me I feel the need for you,
I pour out life, A fire burns me day and night,
Such is the story, always, of Yunus, a single instant For me I feel the need for you.
never devoid of love. I do not rejoice in abundance, (Toprak, 1960Toprak (1960). The source article does not provide a separate full bibliographic entry for this citation.) Nor am I disheartened by misery,
Around the Tombs In your love I console myself,
Around the tombs in the morning, fragile I have seen For me I feel the need for you.
At dawn those bodies all mixed in black earth. Love of you loses lovers, The limbs are undone, they lie dark in those holes, Drown them in the sea of love, The vein dried up, the blood ran away, and a rotten He imbues them with his presence, shroud. For me I feel the need for you. Ruined tombs, full of rubble, knocked down walls,
Far from pity, I have seen very crude and miserable I will drink some wine of passion,
scenes. I will be Mechnun, that Fool in the woods,
Deserted mountain pastures in spring, desolate shelters You are the cure, night and day,
in winter, For me I feel the need for you.
I have seen tongues rusted, and silent, heavy in the mouth. Sufis need a meeting, Who I have seen sunk in pleasures, who delighted in To the confreres from the afterlife, feasts, To the crazy darkness of Leyla, And endless suffering, and the days twisted into the night. For me I feel the need for you. Those black eyes I saw, frozen, faces of bloodless moon,
Ghostly hands, stretched out from underground to If one day he comes and I fall killed,
pick roses. Spread my ashes in the sky,
Twisted garments, meats thrown to the bottom of the pits, The earth will then invoke:
I have seen mothers offended and necks fooled. For me I feel the need for you.
Those who cry and raise complaints, imprint torments
on the soul It is said Empyrean and Paradise,
The demons, and the graves, fire around, and the Scattered pergolas and a few Huri,
gushing smoke I saw. Take them as well whoever wants them,
And here is Yunus, announcing when and where he For me I feel the need for you.
saw this, So Yunus is my name, I was steadfast in mind, now I falter at what I saw, at Higher and higher the fire blazes, that horror. And between the two worlds I aspire to you, (Gölpınarlı, 1943: 119) For me I feel the need for you. (Gölpınarlı, 1943: 98)
Does It Ever Exist in This Country Hixed on the Branch of the Plum
Does it ever exist in this country Hixed on the branch of the plum
A bewildered equal to me? I eat grapes in bunches,
Burned in the chest, eyes in tears, The master yells at me:
A bewildered equal to me? Why are you eating me nuts?! (...)
I wander down to Syria, to Anatolia, I dropped a nice brick into the pot
I go around the districts higher up there, That cooks in the fresh breath of the bora,
How much I have searched, and how much in vain, Who then asks me: -What is it?
A bewildered equal to me! I hasten to immediately say why (...)
That no one is ever lost, The wing of a sparrow I posed
Never nostalgia has to burn it, Above forty wagons all lined up,
That nobody, my Lord, Pair of oxen pull them not know:
You are as lost as I am! Such a decree of fate.
The language speaks, the eye cries, The fly, you know? an eagle shakes you,
The hearts of the petty ones light up, On the ground he slams it well, and replies,
And I would also be a star in the sky: It’s not a lie, it’s all true:
A bewildered equal to me! I saw that whirlwind rise in the air (...).
I ignite, I consume myself in the embers, Yunus arcane words pronounced,
The end will come, one day I die, They accept a comparison with no other,
And I find myself in the chest, in the sepulcher Among the pedantic / hypocrites gathered in the
A bewildered equal to me! Grand Council
Your face keeps the meaning secret.
They will say: - he’s dead, poor fellow! (Gölpınarlı, 2006: 354)
In three days they will know, They will wash it in cold water, A bewildered equal to me! (Masala, 2001: 80-81)
(Here are some examples of “absurd” expressions of Yunus and the dervishes, capable of shaking, rippling, and undermining flat logic; perhaps in the sign of the changing, elusive divinity?)
The poor dervish, cultivating himself, is seeking himself in an inner journey under the guidance of the Master and aspires to divine Beauty and Love as mirrors to each other. (Pixabay, 2015Pixabay (2015). The source article does not provide a separate full bibliographic entry for this citation.)
Vain Those Days Are Gone Without a return you will pass, and if you ever re-
turn, you will not find me, Vain those days are gone, my life, what will I ever Here it is, vain, the patrimony of my self, oh my life, do with you? what will I ever do with you? I have not made myself rich with you, my life, what will I ever do with you? I trusted so much in you, in an overwhelming trust, Is that all that’s left to me, my life, what am I ever As soon as I arrive I am, and I run away, unaware, going to do with you? without a worry,
Not a thought for that eternal goodbye, my life, Yunus petty, you will leave, bewildered, the depar-
what will I ever do with you? ture very miserable,
You’ll be left alone in regret, my life, what will I ever
Evil acts and good deeds, let loose and finally tear do with you?
the thread of existence, (Gölpınarlı, 1943: 433; Masala, 2001: 100-101)
Distorted facial features, counterfeit, my life, what will I ever do with you?