Nahapet Quchak

[Armen]

here is a sexy one for you, Armen.

 

Քու երկու ծըծամիջին

պառկէի ու քուն լինէի.

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OMG. Harut this is porn...No wonder they don't translate it.

[Harut]

was Quchak gay?

 

Ես տըղայ ու դուն տըղայ,

սիրելուն ատենն է հիմայ.

Միջկունքդ աղեղան նըման,

քանի ես քաշեմ, նայ կու գա՛յ.

Քու ծիծդ է խաղող նըման

ու առեր կըրծոցդ ի վերայ.

Քու ծոցդ առաւօտ նըման,

քանի յետ բանամ, նայ լուսնայ:

Edited September 1, 2004 by Harut

[Harut]

... but he sure sounds like a devoted liberal.

 

Ով օտարին վատ ասէ.

ինքն այլ ղաիրպ լինենայ,

Երթա ի յօտար երկիր,

զղարիպին ղատրըն գիտենայ.

Ղարիպն ի յօտար երկիր՝

թէ ոսկի թաթաւ գա նորա,

Ի իւր սիրելեացն ի զատ

այն ոսկին մոխի՛ր չարժենայ:

[Armen]

Harut jan this is too much of Quchak If we take into account that Quchak is an imaginary representative of a dozen of minestrels form 13-14 century...one of them may as well be gay.

[Harut]

the grammatical inconsistances and changing vocabulary throughout the writings do suggest that there were more then one author to these հայրեններ.

 

last one and i'm done today.

 

Եղէգն ի շամբին միջին

կու ճօճայ, այն քո՛ւ անձըն է.

Քու մէջքդ է բարակ ւ' երկան,

և պօյկդ է սալւի րովան.

Ջուր անմահութեան կ' ասեն,

այն ի քո՛ ծոցըն կու բըխէ.

Երնեկ ես անո՛ր կու տամ,

որ դընէ զբերանն ու խըմէ:

Edited September 1, 2004 by Harut

[nairi]

OMG. Harut this is porn...No wonder they don't translate it.

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Dude, that's this one (almost):

 

Oh let me drink your red cheeks' wine

till I have had my fill.

Your breasts are the Garden of Paradise,

let me pick your apples at will.

Oh let me rest on your snow-white breast

and sleep there while I draw breath,

And after an endless repose let me yield

my soul to Angel of Death.

 

But I can see why you would have trouble recognizing it

 

Harut, your observation of gayness/bisexuality could very well be true if these hayrens were indeed written by HQ. Here's another one:

 

They came and brought me the news:

"Your lover's become a monk."

I was startled and trembled all over:

how could he become a monk!

His palate's accustomed to sugar,--

How could he now eat peas!

His skin is used to fine linen--

how could a hair-shirt give ease?

[Yeznig]

This is all very interesting stuff indeed. It is worth noting that given that Quchak stands for a trend rather than an individual, then such poetry was widespread. I have a voulme of all classical hayerens and its massive! You can buy it from Narek.com

 

The charm of Quchak should not blind us to the wonderfully sensual poetry that one can read in the moderns - not just Varouzhan, but Vahan Tekeyan, Bedros Turian, Matteos Zarifian, Rouben Sevak and others.

 

They all wrote nationalist poetry, some of it of great value, but they were human in every respect. Among the greatest Armenian sensualist poets is Charentz who is also one of the greatest political poets.

 

One should not really ask of Armenian poets or writer that lived in the shadow of genocide not to write about it. Their whole being was fashioned by it.

 

There is of course a problem in writing about the genoicde - transforming it into a lifeless icon, draining it of its real human significance and using it to pose and declaim. It is an unfortunate fact that Armenian writers carried away by false nationalism have failed by and large, with some exceptions, to produce real literature about the genoicde.

 

Is it not odd that Franz Werfels '40 Days' remains the only substantial novel on the genocide. It shows the genocide as a human experience with ALL aspects of human life expressed.

[nairi]

and why did i so surly remember 16th century.

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Well he died in 1592.

 

Dear Yeznig, could you tell us more about Quchak? I'm interested.

[Anileve]

Atta girl Nairi! More, more!!

Atta boy Armen!

Atta boy Nahapet!!

About time!

Nahapet Quchak for president!!!

All this sexless, insensual and bland Armenian poetry since.

Nahapet lived at an era before we forgot all about our humanness. After him we resorted to lierature to save our skin rather than talk about it.

Daniel Varuzhan tried to revive it, see his Arevelyan Bagnhik, but he also fell to the struggle to save our skin.

 

As to "tsur", even if it seems to be a poetic license to rhyme with "nour", it is also used in the sense of "tsrel/korel/lost".  Did she have falsies, or artificials? Amot! Shame on me!

On further thought, consider "Sasna Tsrer", the "Crazies of Sasun".

Crazy?

Why not?

Crazy about your/her bosom?

Red blooded Armenian boy?

 

I wish our writers and poets get off that Gen...de stuff and get back where Nahapet left. Poetry for poetry's sake and remind us that we are made of "muscle and blood" and skin.

 

If we could only get over this G....... and J.. stuff.

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Brilliant post! It's refreshing to read poetry of this sort, as you've said good to know that there is a poetic realm beyond G........ Now if I could find literature of this sort I'll feel completely rejuvenated.

[Yeznig]

Brilliant post! It's refreshing to read poetry of this sort, as you've said good to know that there is a poetic realm beyond G........ Now if I could find literature of this sort I'll  feel completely rejuvenated.

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The Armenian genocide has been abused and transformed into a fetish by our establishment who gain from this their social standing and material advantage too. This terrible fetishisation of the genocide has covered up the real human substance of much of Armenian literature, culture and life in general. It is no wonder in these circumstances that many can and do remain ignorant of the tremendously profound and broad human content of much post-Genocide Armenian literature, even if it has the Genocide as a background.

 

Shahan Shahanour's 'Retreat Without Song'

Vasken Shoushanian's 'Summer Nights' and his 'Old Letters of Springtime Love'

Zareh Vorpouni's 'Experience' and 'He Became Man'

Hagop Oshagan's 'The Remnants'

 

All are full of human life, including eroticism, passion and lust.

 

Let us admire the Quchak tradition. But let us not be blind to the human content of our great literature.

[Yeznig]

Well he died in 1592.

 

Dear Yeznig, could you tell us more about Quchak? I'm interested.

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I am afrain I am no expert. I know only the following. Until the 1930s it was assumed that Quchak was the author of all the hayrenns and that he was born somewhere near Van. This was a view held by Chobanian who however introduced some doubt in a later edition of his collected Hayerens. Manoug Abeghian, a renowned scholar argues against claiming that Hayerens were written prior and after the 16th century. Barouyr Sevag writes:

 

The name Quchak I use only conditionally and a synonym for Hayerns accepting completely M Abeghian's view that attributing the Hayerens to Quchak was a mistake, and in these days, at least ignorant.

 

All this is from Srbouhi Hairapetian's 'Historyof Ancient and Medieval Armenian Literature', printed in Lebanon but published by our own Western Prelacy - Armenian Apostolic Church of America.

[nairi]

All this is from Srbouhi Hairapetian's 'Historyof Ancient and Medieval Armenian Literature', printed in Lebanon but published by our own Western Prelacy - Armenian Apostolic Church of America.

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Interesting. I have A History of Armenian Literature: From Ancient Times to the Nineteenth Century (Caravan Books, 1995).

 

She says quite a few very interesting things on hayrens (or hayeren, named after Armenian because they were uniquely national folk songs). Among others, she summarizes Abeghian's finding that hayrens were written in different vernaculars leading to different areas. Some of them are clearly copies of the others, but passed from ear to mouth for so long that they are significantly different from each other. Abeghian concludes "that they have been orally transmitted poems and are not the creation of one era and one individual; but, on the contrary, numerous generations have toiled on them and they have naturally been subject to change, recultivation, and development in the hands of minstrels, as they were sung, throughout the centuries. In other words, those minor poems have shared the life of folk songs and, as folk songs, recorded at various times and places by various people."

 

Quchak is attributed 9 hayrens, of which 7 are in Turkish. These are the only ones apparently that carry his name. All the other ones are nameless. Despite this, the songs are still

referred to as "quchakian" after Quchak.

 

The uniqueness of hayrens lies on the one hand in the style, and on the other in the secular, worldy content. However, even within secular freedom, there are restrictions. Hayrens are never cheaply pornographic (Armen jan, this one's for you ), but rather follow the decorum of "decent" literature.

 

The hayrens also discuss more than mere lust. Love, the main theme, is also restrictive in this world, esp. in one with orthodox theology. Minstrels writing hayrens seek for more freedom. One of them for instance protests against forced marriages:

 

But, yesterday, on a fine day,

I saw a girl led off by stealth,

Snatched from her lover ruthlessly,

by force or by the lure of wealth.

The kind of love that's bought and sold

merits burning at the stake:

True love is a sweet heavenly gift

of apples and of sugar-cake.

 

Another philosophizes on life and society:

 

I took the world in my palm, looked at it as in a mirror;

Then I put it down, I could not find one to love;

I will not share bread and salt with man hence;

Since they slander so much that lies turn into truth.

 

But mostly they are descriptions of female bodily features and unrequitted love:

 

Do not put on your sky-blue dress;

do not bewitch me with your hands.

Don't leave your house. I'm jealous yes,

that you might smile at other men.

Your father did a lot of good,

built bridges over gorge and canyon.

Why don't you do just one good deed

and let me be your bed companion?

 

 

Thank you Srbouhi Hairapetian!!

[bellthecat]

that lies turn into truth.

But mostly they are descriptions of female bodily features and unrequitted love:

 

Though Ouchak does seem to have had a bit of a breast fixation . What about hair, eyes, eyelashes, cheeks, ears, neck, hands, waist, sound of her voice, etc.?

[Armen]

Though Ouchak does seem to have had a bit of a breast fixation  . What about hair, eyes, eyelashes, cheeks, ears, neck, hands, waist, sound of her voice, etc.?

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Bell, you surely have never met an Armenian girl. You would have the same fixation

[ED]

Bell, you surely have never met an Armenian girl. You would have the same fixation

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why do feel like she wont let you get away easy after reading this?

[nairi]

Boys will be boys and some girls too.

 

Bell:

 

Your eyes: the deep blue sea,

your brows: the clouds at night.

Your cheek and face are aglow

and rose-petal-bright.

Wherever you go

no need for candle-light.

The shimmer of your breasts

brings the dead back to life.

 

[bellthecat]

Ahhhh, sweet. If it was written to a real woman then she was as lucky to receive such words as the poet was to be inspired by her beauty. Would women these days appreciate or deserve getting such things written to them, I wonder?

 

Is that another of Quchak's, Nairi?

 

Isn't he thought to have come from the Van region, which might account for the references to the sea and blue eyes (there are a lot of light-blue-eyed people in that region, and in a land-locked country the lake is as good a substitute for a proper sea as you could find).

[bellthecat]

Bell, you surely have never met an Armenian girl. You would have the same fixation

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Or as Morrissey put it (back in the distant days when he could write decent songs unlike his current crap) "some girls are bigger than others"!

[nairi]

Is that another of Quchak's, Nairi?

Yes

 

Isn't he thought to have come from the Van region, which might account for the references to the sea and blue eyes (there are a lot of light-blue-eyed people in that region, and in a land-locked country the lake is as good a substitute for a proper sea as you could find).

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Hairapetan writes that Arshak Chopanian claimed that all these hayrens came from one author, namely Quchak, who must have been a troubadour that had lived in Akn, wandering from city to city in western Armenia and Asia Minor and settling in Van where he died. He was buried in Kharakonis. Chopanian's opinion was based on these lines written in the colophon of a manuscript gospel in 1637: "Bethink of Quchak and his grandfather, master Nahapet, who was called ashgh (troubadour) Quchak...". Later, however, Abeghian "corrected" this view by saying that the hayrens were written by different people (see my previous post).

[nairi]

In The Heritage of Armenian Literature it says that Quchak was born around the beginning of the sixteenth century in the village of Kharakonis, in the province of Van. He died in 1592 and is buried in the Church of St. Thaddeus (Surb Tadeos) in Kharakonis.

[Harut]

Յովհաննէս Երզնկացի Պլուզ

1230-1293

 

i was just now going through his series of Հայրենի Կարգաւ in Հայ Դասական Գնարերգություն book. guess what i found; exactly same հայրեն that i also read in the book of Նահապետ Քուչակ.

[Armen]

Which one Harut?

[Harut]

... but he sure sounds like a devoted liberal.

 

Ով օտարին վատ ասէ.

ինքն այլ ղաիրպ լինենայ,

Երթա ի յօտար երկիր,

զղարիպին ղատրըն գիտենայ.

Ղարիպն ի յօտար երկիր՝

թէ ոսկի թաթաւ գա նորա,

Ի իւր սիրելեացն ի զատ

այն ոսկին մոխի՛ր չարժենայ:

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this one...

 

i haven't gone through all of his writings though. there might be more.

[Harut]

well, apperently it was a regular thing to write about breasts when writing love poems in those ages. here is another one from...

 

Յովհաննէս Թլկուրանցի

(ԺԴ-ԺԵ ԴԴ.)

 

this one is not a հայրեն but two pages long poem. the whole thing is not that explisit, but close to the end...

 

Երեսդ է արև, ճակատդ է Զօհրան,

Կըլափդ է խընծոր, ծըծերդ է շամամ,

Զինչ յեկեմ դրախտի՝ ի քո ծոցըդ կան,

Երբ շաքարն ի մօտս՝ ինձ ի Մըսր ի՞նչ բան.

Սիրով մի՛ սպանաներ, ճէլլատ էֆէնտի:

 

and if you want to learn about the "resorts" of the time, read on...

 

Պագ մի յերեսէդ աժէ զԵզնկան,

ԶՀապաշ ու զԵմեն, զՏիլ ու զՀունաստան,

Երկու վարսդ է գին, է՜ Չին ու Խութան,

Պուլղար ու զԸստամբօլ ու շահրի Եազտան.

Սիրով մի՛ սպանաներ, ճէլլատ էֆէնտի:

[Stormig]

Shaddaim.