Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Gör imdi hîle-i 'Osmân ne itdi
Baş oynadı vü hem çok başlar ütdi
Kâfirler oña duzaklar düzerdi
Bu çâpük ayagın karvadı tutdı
Kâfirler kazdı kuyı Gāzi düşeler
Kâfirler düşdi gāziler dürişdi
Karañu kâfirüñ gözin büridi
Gāziler nûrı 'Osmân'a buluşdı
In English
1. See now what Osman's cunning did: he staked his own head in the game and won many heads.
2. The infidels kept setting snares for him; this nimble one set his foot in their snare and caught them.
3. The infidels dug a pit for the gazi to fall into; the infidels fell, the gazis fought.
4. Darkness covered the infidel's eyes; the gazis reached the light of Osman.
Literary and Historical Commentary
The Wedding at Çakırbınarı
The twelfth chapter, the story of the wedding raid, is among Âşıkpaşazâde's liveliest narratives. Through Mihal, Osman sends word to the tekfur: since they are moving to the summer pastures, he wishes once again to leave the goods of his mother and his women in the fortress, and the women would like to meet the tekfur's mother. He asks that the wedding be held in an open place rather than in cramped Bilecik, and the wedding is set up at Çakırbınarı. On the appointed day men are wrapped among the bales of felt loaded on the oxen; in the dusk the bales enter the fortress, gazis with drawn swords spring out, cut down the gatekeepers, and the fortress falls. Osman meanwhile dresses some gazis in women's clothes and goes to the wedding, where he is lodged apart. The drunken tekfur, hearing "the Turk has fled", rides after him and gives up his life at the stream of Kaldırık. In the morning Yarhisar is raided and its tekfur and the bride are captured; Turgut Alp is sent against İnegöl and Aya Nikola's fortress is taken too.
Pit and Light
He who sets a snare falls into it, he who digs a pit falls into it: the moral of the story comes in two proverbial images. "Baş oynadı vü hem çok başlar ütdi" in the first couplet is phrased in the language of gambling: Osman stakes his own head and with the verb "ütmek", to win at a game, he wins many heads. The last couplet turns to the contrast of darkness and light; the same image was used in Manzume 1, after Osman's election as bey. İtdi, ütdi, tutdı, dürişdi and buluşdı make only a loose rhyme; such rhymes, content with a likeness of sound, are common in Âşıkpaşazâde's verse.
Bibliography
- Âşık Paşazade, Osmanoğulları'nın Tarihi, ed. Kemal Yavuz, M. A. Yekta Saraç, Istanbul: K Kitaplığı, 2003, p. 337 (transliterated text, bâb 12).
