Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Ne tâli' tutdı İstanbol cihanda
Ki hükmi ber-karâr olmaz bu cânda
Televvün olsa pâdişâh sözinde
Olur memleketi dâyim ziyânda
Husûsâ kim kâfir ola vezîri
Zarar ister olur dâyim îmânda
In English
1. What fortune did Constantinople take on in the world, that its rule does not stay settled in this soul.
2. If there is inconstancy in the sovereign's word, his realm is ever in loss.
3. Above all if his vizier is an infidel, he always seeks harm, (harm) to the faith.
Literary and Historical Commentary
Rûm Mehmed
At this point of the chapter the author says plainly: "Rûm Muhammed was the cause of this present rent." In the edition this sentence is followed by three untitled couplets. From the editors' notes it appears that the second line of the first couplet, the whole of the second couplet and the first line of the third are in italics, that is, missing from manuscript A and taken from the S manuscript. In that case the piece in manuscript A is much shorter, perhaps only a single couplet.
The Colour of a Word
Its criticism has two targets. The first is "televvün", the changing colour of the sovereign's word: the rent once remitted was imposed again, and this leaves the realm ever in loss. The second is the vizier's origin: an infidel vizier always seeks harm, and the harm touches the faith. The author had said earlier that Rûm Mehmed was a captive from Constantinople and reckoned, speaking of "our people", that the town would fall again into Greek hands. This criticism is one of the plainest expressions of Âşıkpaşazâde's suspicion of viziers of convert and slave origin; the same suspicion was sensed in the phrase about the reign of Yıldırım Bayezid, "many infidels came to be". The sense of the first couplet is obscure: Constantinople's "fortune" and its rule not settling in this soul may point to the town's fate of ever changing hands. Cihanda, cânda, ziyânda and îmânda stand side by side as rhyme words.
Bibliography
- Âşık Paşazade, Osmanoğulları'nın Tarihi, ed. Kemal Yavuz, M. A. Yekta Saraç, Istanbul: K Kitaplığı, 2003, p. 490 (transliterated text, bâb 123).
