Âşıkî, Manzume 148: Bildüñ mi cihân kimselere ne'yledi nitdi

Manzume 148 — Bildüñ mi cihân kimselere ne'yledi nitdi

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

Five long-lined couplets on the deceit of the world, coming right after the previous piece, following the surrender of Sinop and the end of İsmail Beg's principality.

Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Bildüñ mi cihân kimselere ne'yledi nitdi
Güldi yüzine bir iki gün aldadı yitdi

Uçurdı anı sahrâya o hırs u hevesden
Gaflet tuzagın kurmış-ıdı tîz anı tutdı

Girdi bu cihân bâgına kim bir gülin ala
Hançer gibi dikeni gör cânına batdı

Her nesneyi kim kendünüñ o sandı cihânda
Kim sanu-ımış ancak anuñ gayrısı gitdi

'Âşıkî hayâl atına sen binme cihanda
Kim bindi-y-ise gör anı kim âhırı n'itdi

In English

1. Do you know what the world did to people, what it wrought; it smiled on them for a day or two, deceived them and vanished.

2. It sent him flying to the open plain with that greed and desire; it had set the snare of heedlessness and caught him at once.

3. He went into this garden of the world to take one of its roses; see, its thorn pierced his soul like a dagger.

4. Everything in the world that he thought his own was (in truth) only a supposition; all else was gone.

5. Âşıkî, do not ride the horse of fancy in this world; see what it did in the end to whoever rode it.

Literary and Historical Commentary

A Series of Counsels

Where İsfendiyaroğlu İsmail Beg gives up Sinop and his principality comes to an end, a series of three counsels has been placed; this is the last of them, and in the edition it follows the verse "Bir iki gün olan cihana kalma" under a separate heading. The prose had told how the sovereign would not let İsmail Beg kiss his hand, calling him "my elder brother", and then placed his own slaves in the fortresses. This piece, in a metre with longer lines, works the same thought like a story.

The Garden of the World

The first couplet presents the world as a being that smiles on people for a day or two, then deceives them and vanishes. The second uses the image of the hunt: the world sent man flying to the plain with greed and desire, set the snare of heedlessness and caught him at once. The image of rose and thorn in the third couplet is a familiar one in divan poetry; but here the thorn piercing the soul like a dagger stresses the weight of the wound taken by one who enters the garden of the world for a rose. The sense of the fourth couplet is somewhat obscure: everything a man thinks his own in the world is only a supposition, and what was real has gone from his hands. In the final couplet the author addresses himself by his pen name: he must not ride the horse of fancy in this world, for the end of those who rode it is plain to see. This couplet may be read as a counsel addressed both to İsmail Beg and to the reader at the scene where a principality changes hands. The couplets close on the verbs nitdi, yitdi, tutdı, batdı, gitdi and n'itdi, a "-di/-dı" refrain.