Photo: Zeynel Cebeci, CC BY-SA 4.0

Manzume 139 — İki leşker dürişüp olsa 'arbe

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

Three couplets on the Conqueror's siege of Belgrade in 861 (1456), where his uncle Karaca Beg is killed, the Rumelian lords hold back, and the sultan charges himself.

Contents 4

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

Original Ottoman Turkish Text

İki leşker dürişüp olsa 'arbe
Kimine kılıç irer kimine harbe

Kimi kaçar anı kovar bulınmaz
Er olan karşu varur oka darba

Gāziler togrı olur dîn yolında
Salalar dîn kılıcın şarka garba

In English

1. When two armies clash and there is battle, the sword reaches some, the spear others.

2. Some flee, and none is found to pursue them; the man who is a man goes forward, into arrow and blow.

3. The gazis are upright on the path of the faith; they swing the sword of the faith to east and west.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Before Belgrade

For the Belgrade campaign copper horses and bells are broken up in Constantinople and used for the cannon; with this detail the hundred and twenty-sixth chapter opens the Conqueror's march on Belgrade. The Conqueror's uncle Karaca Beg is governor-general of Rumelia; one day, as he has cannon fired at the fortress from the trenches, a small gun shot from the fortress strikes the wooden shield, the shield falls and Karaca Beg is killed. Ships fight on the water too; several are lost. The khan says, "Ho, gazis, we must advance"; the khan's own slaves advance, but the author says, "the men of Rumelia turned traitor and did not advance." The slaves get into the fortress; the infidels throw all their strength against them, turn them back and kill many. The sovereign mounts, crying "Ho, gazis, why do we stand here," and charges the infidels; the young volunteers charge with him and drive the infidels back into the fortress. In the failure to take the fortress the treachery of Rumelia comes to light; the Rumelian lords are said to have thought, "If Belgrade is taken, we shall have to plough," that is, they feared the frontier would close. The author also records that in that year two great comets appeared, one in the west and one in the east.

The Man Goes Forward

The couplets hold the failed siege up against a measure of valour. When two armies clash, sword reaches some and spear others; some flee and are not pursued, but the man who is a man goes forward into arrow and blow. This couplet makes an indirect allusion to the scene of the sultan charging himself and to the Rumelian lords who did not advance. The last couplet says the gazis are upright on the path of faith and swing the sword of faith east and west. The rhyme is carried by 'arbe, harbe, darba and garba. This siege, in which the Conqueror failed to take Belgrade, is presented in the work not as a defeat but as a gazâ left unfinished through the lords' treachery.