Âşıkî, Manzume 112: Ne assı eyleyiser sanu sanmak

Manzume 112 — Ne assı eyleyiser sanu sanmak

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

A hundred years' supplies burned in a night: Haydar Beg of Kocakayası yields to Yörgüç after Tayfur Çelebi, who claimed Elvan Çelebi's line, fires the stores.

Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Ne assı eyleyiser sanu sanmak
Şuña degmez hazîneñ oda yanmak

İşüñ sen sıdk-ıla vir Hakk'a kim ol
Kim ola muhkem meyli o sunmak

Kaçan kim sen idesin 'akluñ-ılan
Danışmasañ diyeler saña ahmak

In English

1. What good will supposing and imagining do; it is not worth having your treasury burn in the fire.

2. Give your work to God with sincerity, so that He may offer a firm inclination.

3. Whenever you act by your own reason, if you do not take counsel they will call you a fool.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Kocakayası

The district of Osmancık, Amasya's neighbour, is the scene of the ninety-ninth chapter: "In this district of Osmancık, at Zeytun, there is a fortress called Kocakayası." The fortress is in the hands of Haydar Beg and is very steep. Haydar Beg has laid up a hundred years' supplies in the fortress and never comes out; from time to time he sends his son Kasım Beg to the lords round about with gifts. One day his son asks, "If they seize me, what will you do?" The father says, "Son, I have entrusted you to God. I will not come out of this fortress until I die; in my old age I cannot serve anyone." Yörgüç Paşa works hard to take the fortress. In the fortress lives a man named Tayfur Çelebi, who always says, "I am one of the sons of Elvan Çelebi"; he has married and settled in the fortress, and Haydar Beg loves him even more than his own son. Yörgüç wins Tayfur over by giving him much; one night Tayfur sets fire to the fortress's storehouse and all the supplies burn. Yörgüç at once besieges the fortress and leaves no way for supplies to be brought in. Haydar Beg calls from inside: "Yörgüç, I have become what I was to become; I ask of God that your end too be like mine," and gives up the fortress of his own will. The khan gives Haydar Beg good timars; slaves are placed in the fortress, and it remains in Ottoman hands down to the author's time.

A Traitor of Elvan Çelebi's Line

This chapter has a special side for the author: the man who brings down the fortress is one who claims descent from Elvan Çelebi. Elvan Çelebi is Âşıkpaşazâde's ancestor, and the village where the author was born bears his name. The author reports this claim but does not confirm it; he is content to say "he always used to say". Telling of the treachery of a man who claimed to be of his own line, he does not raise his voice. The couplets take as their subject the emptiness of Haydar Beg's reckoning, leaving the morality of the treachery aside: calculating a hundred years of supplies, supposing and imagining, is not worth a single night's fire. The second couplet advises leaving one's work to God in sincerity, the third speaks of the importance of counsel: one who acts by his own reason and does not consult is counted a fool. The couplet on counsel can be read as an allusion to Haydar Beg, who did not listen to his son's worry.