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Manzume 152 — Ne hîle itdi Voyvoda kazuklu

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

Two couplets on the Impaler Voivode, who would not come to the Porte, raided Hamza Beg by night across the frozen Danube and sent his head to the Hungarian king.

Contents 4

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

Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Ne hîle itdi Voyvoda kazuklu
Necis ü murdar u la'net azıklu

Dırakolaoglı ol bedbaht mundar
Kırar dimez sevâbludur kazuklu [yazuklu]

In English

1. What a trick the Impaler Voivode played; unclean and filthy, (he) whose provision is a curse.

2. That ill-starred, filthy son of Dracul; he kills, and does not ask whether one is righteous or sinful, the impaler.

Literary and Historical Commentary

A Trick

The cause of the Wallachian campaign takes up a long stretch of prose in the hundred and thirty-sixth chapter; this verse stands at its end. After the Conqueror returns to Constantinople envoys begin to come from round about; an envoy comes from the lord of Wallachia too. The lord of Wallachia is summoned to the Porte, but he gives this answer: "These people of my province are not loyal to me." If he leaves his land and goes to the Porte, the Hungarians will come and give the province to another; he asks the sovereign to send one of the frontier lords to the bank of the Danube to guard the province, while he himself goes to bow before the Porte. The khan trusts him and sends Hamza Beg, the chief falconer, one of the frontier lords, with many Muslims. It is winter and the Danube is frozen. The Muslims are off guard. The author says the lord of Wallachia's real aim was not to come to the Porte: at the very middle of the night he raids Hamza Beg, seizes him, kills many Muslims, sends his troops across at several places and does great harm to the land. He cuts off the heads of Hamza Beg and many Muslims and sends them to the Hungarian king with the message, "I have become an enemy of the Turks."

The Impaler

The man is given two names in the couplets: "Voyvoda kazuklu", the Impaler Voivode, and "Dırakolaoglı", son of Dracul. The first couplet presents him as unclean, filthy and one whose provision is a curse. The second gives his name and describes his cruelty in a single stroke: when he kills he makes no distinction between the righteous and the sinful. In the edition the last word is read "kazuklu", with the correction "yazuklu" set beside it in square brackets; "yazuklu" means sinful and makes a contrast with "sevâblu", righteous. These two couplets are of interest as one of the earliest portrayals of the Wallachian voivode in Ottoman sources. Kazuklu, azıklu and kazuklu again share the "-uklu" rhyme.