A Proverb Poem by Levni

Abstract

As Rosalind Fergusson points out in her preface to the Penguin Dictionary of Proverbs (1982, v), proverbs exist in virtually all the languages of the world. In Turkish, throughout the Ottoman period, they were frequently gathered together in poems, which it was hoped would act as guides to conduct, compendiums of wisdom and experience. The following example, loosely translated from a shortened version of the eighteenth century original, Atas6zleri destani (A proverb poem), by Levni, might be considered typical. For the original text of the poem see Vasfi Mahir Kocatiirk, Saz #iiri antolojisi (1963, 221-224). Collections of Turkish proverbs can be consulted in Omer Asim Aksoy, Atasiizleri sizliigii (1971), and in Aydin Su, Afzklamal atasozleri (1971). An account of the use of proverbs in Turkish folk literature can be found in Dehri Dil9in, Edebiyatimzda atasozleri (1945). A list of the original Turkish proverbs used in the poem (with the appropriate English stanza number and an English translation) is given below. Very little is known about Levni, who lived in the first half of the eighteenth century. It is said that he was a cultivated man, who wrote both popular and classical verse, and painted miniatures (KOCATURK 1963, 219). In Atasozleri destani he generally uses one proverb in each of the twenty nine more or less autonomous stanzas of the poem, though he occasionally uses two, and on one occasion three. When using a longer proverb he sometimes divides it between two lines of the stanza, as for example in the following: