Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Kime şâdî kime gam yurdı 'âlem
Ki bir dem biñ şîve gösterdi 'âlem
Misâl-i gice gündüz kim senüñlen
Tolaşup devr ider n'isterdi 'âlem
Bu dünyâ 'âlem-i kevn i fesâd bil
Bu tavra böyle bünyâd oldı 'âlem

In English

1. The world is a home of joy for some and of grief for others; in a single moment the world showed a thousand graces.

2. Like night and day it turns about with you; what did the world want.

3. Know that this world is the realm of coming to be and passing away; the world was founded thus, in this fashion.

Literary and Historical Commentary

The Brothers in Tokat

At the end of the ninety-third chapter a question is asked: "What did Sultan Murad do with those two little brothers and with the daughters?" The answer is short. The two young brothers had been imprisoned in Tokat; Murad has them brought and it is said he "opened the eyes of their hearts"; the editors render this in modern Turkish as "he opened the eyes of their hearts and closed their worldly eyes", that is, they were blinded. They are given a stipend in Bursa and their mother lives with them; their names are Mahmud and Yusuf. Three of the sisters are given to three lords of Karaman, İbrahim, Alaeddin and İsa; two to İsfendiyar's sons İbrahim and Kasım; one to Karaca Beg, governor-general of Anatolia, who would fall as a martyr at Varna; and one to the son of İbrahim Paşa, and she died in Mecca. Tokat is mentioned many times in the work as one of the safest places of imprisonment in the Ottoman province of Rum.

A Home of Joy and Grief

After this brief report the couplets turn to the world's two faces: joy for some, grief for others. The sisters go as brides to lords, the brothers fall into prison and darkness; the world shows a thousand graces at once. The second couplet likens the turning of the world to the round of night and day. The third uses a term from philosophy: "'âlem-i kevn ü fesâd", the realm of coming to be and passing away, that is the sublunar world where everything is born and perishes. The refrain "'âlem" occurs twice in each of the three couplets; this dense repetition makes the world itself the subject of the poem. The author does not judge what was done to Murad's brothers; he sees it as a turn within the order of the world.

Bibliography

  • Âşık Paşazade, Osmanoğulları'nın Tarihi, ed. Kemal Yavuz, M. A. Yekta Saraç, Istanbul: K Kitaplığı, 2003, p. 445 (transliterated text, bâb 93).