Poetry
Gül-Bilbil
Not translated into English
Abdylla Şabende · 1800
Synopsis
In the land of Turan, King Nasyr grieves at having no child; a son is at last born to him. At seven, young Bilbil falls in love in a dream with Gül, who also sees him in a dream, but she is of the race of the peris and he of that of men. He turns away the other beauties intended for him and sets off to find her with his friend Sala beg, his teacher the mullah Galandar and Zelili, a servant of humble birth. Trials and fabulous beings rise up along his road.
Context
The poet says himself, in his poem “Begler”, that he composed this dastan in the last years of his life. The work belongs to the author's dastan, a form that Turkmen poets of the eighteenth century took up in writing alongside Andalyp. Despite its Arabic and Persian words, its language remains close to that of the people, and the verses it contains rest on the resources of common speech. Gül, daughter of the peris, supports the heroes throughout the narrative, which defends the idea that true love makes no distinction between beings.
Who it is for
In Turkmen, with no French or English translation. It helps to know that the rose and the nightingale form, in the East, a pair of lovers accepted for centuries.
Prizes and reception
The composer Hudaýnazar Amangeldiýew made an opera from it, with a libretto by Gowşutgeldi Daňatarow, performed at the Magtymguly National Theatre in Ashgabat.
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