Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Sebeb-i 'Osmân'dan toydı vü guzât
Kimi altun gümiş aldı kimi at
Kimi begendügi kızlardan aldı
Gāzilerüñ-idi ol demde fursat
Gāziler cem' oldı 'Osmân'a niyyet
Ki dâyim artar oldı fazl u ni'met
Sa'âdet güneşi togdı ezelden
Nazar idüñ gāziler oldı mir'ât

In English

1. Through Osman the gazis were sated; some took gold and silver, some a horse.

2. Some took girls they liked; at that moment fortune was in the gazis' hands.

3. The gazis gathered to Osman's purpose; so grace and blessing were ever increasing.

4. The sun of felicity had risen from eternity; look, the gazis became its mirror.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Samsa Çavuş and Köse Mihal

How the infidels of Hırmenkaya came to know Osman Gazi is the matter of the tenth chapter. The gazis halt at the tekke of Biştaş; the sheikh says the river is "a ford for gazis", and the horses swim across. On the other side Samsa Çavuş awaits them; he had come to Söğüt with Ertuğrul, later settled in the district of Mudurnu and got on well with the infidels there. Because the infidels of the area trust him, they make a pledge to Osman. Raids follow to Göynük, Tarakçı Yenicesi and Gül-Falanoz, and from Hırmenkaya to Karacahisar; Köse Mihal acts as guide along the way. The author records one detail with particular care: no captives are taken, only goods and booty, because the aim is to make the population their subjects.

Plunder and Mirror

Gold, silver, horses and girls: the couplets count the gains of the raid one by one. The tension between the girls of the second couplet and the prose remark "they took no captives" is not resolved in the text. The couplets do not hide that gazâ was a livelihood; "toymak", to be sated, is the raiders' word for finding booty, and it recurs throughout the work in the form "toyumluk". The last couplet suddenly raises the subject: the sun of felicity rose from eternity, and the gazis became the mirror of that sun. In Sufi poetry the mirror image describes the reflection of divine light in the human heart; here the same image ties the success of the Ottoman beylik to an eternal decree. Four Arabic words stand side by side in the rhyme: guzât, fursat, ni'met, mir'ât.

Bibliography

  • Âşık Paşazade, Osmanoğulları'nın Tarihi, ed. Kemal Yavuz, M. A. Yekta Saraç, Istanbul: K Kitaplığı, 2003, pp. 333-334 (transliterated text, bâb 10).