Beirut merchants: do you rememberAl Rozana?

very long time ago Turkey sent a ship into Lebanon with many goods on it to compete with Beirut merchants, with very low prices
and they succeeded, the merchants of Beirut couldn’t sell a lot of the Fruits that started to rot, so the merchants of Aleppo came from Syria, and bought everything they have, and saved Beirut merchants, and they gone to Aleppo and the turkey ship gone back to Turkey.

The Turkey ship name was “Rosana”, and so the Lebanese wrote the Rozana song as a thank Aleppo merchants, and then it became very popular.

“It is a folk song belongs to the region of Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine. The story behind it is that at the height of the intense wheat famine that the region experienced at the beginning of the 20th century, and Italian ship called “The Rosanna” was said to have been sent by Turkey, carrying food to the starving population of the Levant. Everybody was waiting in anticipation for the ship’s arrival, but when it finally landed as the story goes in the song, it was carrying nothing but apples and grapes, of the foods that the region was actually overflowing with at that time. The people cursed the ship for this reason.

How many of Lebanese people have had all of their rosy dreams met with dark disappointment, and all their hopes were squandered on an endless range of despair, frustration and helplessness, but the Aleppo merchants saved them.

Here are the lyrics.

Oh the Rosanna, the Rosanna,

everything good is inside her
What has the Rosanna done?
God punish her!
Oh the Rosanna the Rosanna,

 all happiness is inside her
What has the Rosanna done?
God punish her

Hey you who are going to Halab, my love went with you
Hey you who are carrying grapes and on top of that apples
Everyone is with their beloved and my beloved has gone
Oh lord, may the breeze bring my lover back to me

I won’t live in Beirut, because my nostalgia is there

 Oh my lover is in Halab,

Inside you is my love, you who are going there,

Bring him my message, bring my lover back to me

Only for an hour

Everyone is with his lover and mine has gone

Oh lord, may the breeze bring my lover back to me

by the rosana, by the rosana, all the happiness came with it
but what did the rosana actually do, may god punish it

oh you who is going back to hamah, please keep me on your mind
Two thirds of my mind have gone the way your girl have gone

I swear to you by everything Precious, and the source of your drinking water
our water is from Orontes River, the drink of the Mandarins

I won’t live in Beirut, because my nostalgia is there

 Oh my lover is in there,

Oh the Rosanna, the Rosanna,

Everything good is inside her
What has the Rosanna done?
God punish her!
Oh the Rosanna the Rosanna,

At last I say: Do you remember, or you have forgotten, Turkey or the Ottoman Empire, wished to bankrupt the merchants in Beirut, but merchants of Aleppo saved them.

 Turkeynow robbed around 1,000 factories with all their equipment and machines in Aleppo city, and smuggling them into the Turkish territories, Turkey is still the same, but where are the merchants of Lebanon?????

Butheina Al-Nounou