Photo: Zeynel Cebeci, CC BY-SA 4.0

Manzume 173 — 'Adû kim def' ola ol kat' olupdur

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

Two couplets where Cem, back from Mecca, marches on Ankara with Kasım Beg of Karaman, a scouting party of the Amasya troops kills the governor who deserted to him, and Cem takes to the sea.

Contents 4

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

Original Ottoman Turkish Text

'Adû kim def' ola ol kat' olupdur
Adı diri, o ma'nîde ölüpdür

Dahı gülmez anuñ cânı yâ göñli
Harâbdur bâgçası göñli solupdur

In English

1. The enemy who is driven off is cut off; his name is alive, but in truth he has died.

2. His soul and his heart no longer laugh; his garden is in ruins, his heart has withered.

Literary and Historical Commentary

The Amasya Troops

Cem Sultan's return from Mecca is told in the hundred and fifty-ninth chapter. Cem returns from Mecca to Egypt and meets Kasım Beg of Karaman at Adana. A treacherous slave who is governor of the sancak of Ankara deserts to Cem; Cem and the lord of Karaman turn towards Ankara. At this point the troops of Amasya come onto the scene. The author tells it thus: before Sultan Bayezid Han arrived, "they had sent a patrol from the Amasya troops into the region of Ankara; they met that traitor, gave him no quarter and struck him down like a dog." They also kill some of the "crows of Karaman" who came with him; those who escape barely save their heads and flee. Sultan Bayezid reaches Ankara and rests there a few days. Cem flees with the lord of Karaman into İçil. Bayezid goes up again to Konya and sends picked men after Cem. Cem flees down to the seashore, finds a ship and puts out to sea; the author says, "where he is, is not known," and adds that many strange tales belong here but he has cut them short. Bayezid returns to Constantinople. The date is 887 (1482).

Amasya's Place

This chapter is one of the important places in the part of the work on the reign of Bayezid II where Amasya is named. The troops of the town where Bayezid had long sat as governor were sent as a patrol into the Ankara region and caught the traitor who had gone over to Cem. This record also shows that Bayezid relied on his circle in Amasya for his throne. The Bayezid II page tells more of the bond between Amasya and Bayezid. The couplets, for their part, look at the state of the defeated side. The enemy who is driven off is finished; though his name lives, in truth he has died. The second couplet gives the inner side of this defeat: his soul and his heart no longer laugh, his garden is in ruins, his heart has withered. The couplets do not name Cem, but they come right after his putting out to sea for an unknown place. Olupdur, ölüpdür and solupdur echo one another at the line-ends.