Photo: Zeynel Cebeci, CC BY-SA 4.0

Manzume 107 — Veys Ahmed Beg tîmârın gör el ayak baglu demürde

Amasya05 Editorial Board • Editor: Mevlüt Erdem Öztürk • 01 October 2026 • Updated: 14 October 2026 • 3 min reading

Imprisoned princes speak in three long couplets: Veys and Ahmed of Menteşe, sent to Tokat, are first given a timar and then shut in Tokat castle.

Contents 4

1Original Ottoman Turkish Text
2In English
3Literary and Historical Commentary
4Bibliography

Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Veys Ahmed Beg tîmârın gör el ayak baglu demürde
Balaban mülke hükm ider göñül var kürk-i sammurda

Bular begzâdeler diler halâs olmak bu zindândan
Dahı añmaz-ıduk mansıb alursa gün bu 'ömürde

Yalançı şîvelü 'âlem bize gaflet ipin dakdı
'Âkıbet zindân içinde hâlümüz oldı bu sırda

In English

1. See the timar of Veys and Ahmed Beg: hands and feet bound in iron; Balaban rules the realm, his heart wrapped in sable fur.

2. These are princes; they wish to be freed from this dungeon; even if one day in this life they gained office, we would not speak of it again.

3. The lying, coquettish world put the rope of heedlessness on us; in the end, at this moment, our state was within the dungeon.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Princes Sent to Tokat

What became of the house of Menteşe once their fathers were gone is told in the ninety-sixth chapter. Yakub Beg of Menteşe dies, leaving two sons, İlyas Beg and Mahmud Beg. Mahmud does not become lord; İlyas does, and he too dies. İlyas's two sons are serving at the khan's Porte; when it is heard that their father has died and their register has been "rolled up", they are sent to Tokat and given the Bidevî Çardağı as a timar. One is Veys Beg, the other Ahmed Beg. The land of Menteşe is given as a timar to Balaban Paşa. In the rest of the chapter it appears that these two princes were imprisoned in the castle of Tokat.

Iron and Sable

The long lines catch the eye first: approaching sixteen syllables, this metre is found in none of the other pieces in the chapter. The first couplet sets two contrary pictures side by side: the "timar" of Veys and Ahmed is iron binding hand and foot, while Balaban rules the realm with his heart wrapped in sable. Plainly the word "timar" is used here with bitter irony. The second couplet is the princes' voice: they want to be freed from this dungeon; even if one day they gained office, they would not speak of it again. In the third the world, like a "lying, coquettish" beloved, has put the rope of heedlessness round their necks, and in the end they have fallen into the dungeon. The Bidevî Çardağı and the castle of Tokat appear in the work as the place where Musa's governor-general Mihaloğlu and the sons of the Serbian despot were also imprisoned; the province of Rum is like an inner region where the Ottomans held people they considered dangerous.