Photo: Dosseman, CC BY-SA 4.0

Manzume 162 — Bu dünyâ lezzeti bil agudandur

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

Four couplets where Gedük Ahmed takes Alanya in 876, its lord Kılıç Arslan is given Komotini, and while keeping watch on the shore he boards a ship and flees, leaving wife and son.

Contents 4

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

Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Bu dünyâ lezzeti bil agudandur
Seni her yalan ile avudandur

Ve ger biñ yaşasañ dâyim sag olsañ
Soñı süñüklerüñi uvadandur

Kime kim hayr u şer sen kasd idersin
O kasduñ seni sine iledendür

Anuñ-ıla Hakka sen hâzır olasın
Kimüñ hakkı ki olsa diledendür

In English

1. Know that the pleasure of this world is of poison; it is what lulls you with every lie.

2. Though you live a thousand years and stay ever healthy, its end is what grinds your bones to dust.

3. Whomever you intend good or evil towards, that intent is what leads you to the bosom (of the grave).

4. With it you will come before God; whoever has a right is the one who asks for it.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Alanya and Komotini

Gedük Ahmed's taking of Alanya turns, in the hundred and forty-sixth chapter, into the story of a family. The lord of Alanya is Kılıç Arslan Beg, son of Lütfi Beg; the author records that his sister is the wife of Rûm Mehmed. The people decide to surrender, and Kılıç Arslan Beg is brought to the sovereign with all his treasure and his kin. When he sees the sovereign's face he lays his own face on the ground. The sovereign tells him: "Ho, do not be afraid, no harm of mine will touch you. And I will give you a good fief, larger than your province." At that hour he gives him Komotini as a fief, takes nothing of his goods and cloth, and gives gifts to his wife and son as well. The author then tells what Kılıç Arslan Beg did at Komotini. Komotini lies near the shore of the sea; watchmen are kept on the coast against pirate ships. Since arriving there Kılıç Arslan Beg keeps the watch himself and has a tent pitched on the shore. One day a ship comes close to the shore; Kılıç Arslan Beg spurs his horse into the sea as if to attack it. A boat waiting ready on the ship comes, takes him up and carries him aboard. He leaves his son and his wife and goes. The author also writes of their end: the son has died, and the wife has been placed with her son.

The World's Poison

After the flight the pleasure of the world is likened to poison: it lulls man with every lie, and though he live a thousand years it grinds his bones in the end. The third couplet says that a man's intent returns to him: whomever you intend good or evil towards, that intent leads you to your bosom, that is, to the grave. The last couplet recalls the day of reckoning: man will come before God with this intent. The couplets close on agudandur, avudandur, uvadandur, iledendür and diledendür, an "-andur/-endür" refrain.