Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Balaban karga uçurmaz kaladan
Baras teküri kaçınadı belâdan
Temür hôd gice gündüz râhat itmez
Belâya ogradı kâfir 'anâdan
In English
1. Balaban lets not even a crow fly from the fortress; the tekfur of Bursa could not escape calamity.
2. As for Temür, he gives no rest night or day; the infidel met calamity through his own obstinacy.
Literary and Historical Commentary
Two Siege Towers
The siege of Bursa begins in the eighteenth chapter with two structures: Osman Gazi has two havale, siege towers, built facing the fortress: one on the side of the hot springs, the other on the mountain side. At the head of one he places his nephew Aktemür, at the head of the other his slave Balabancuk. The towers cut the town off from the outside, and Bursa enters a long blockade. Its surrender will come in the twenty-third chapter, under Orhan's command, with the tekfur withdrawing for money.
Letting No Crow Fly
Popular idiom gives the measure of how tight the siege was. "Karga uçurmamak", to let no crow fly, is an idiom still alive today: no one can get in or out of a place. In the first couplet the idiom is tied to Balaban's fortress, in the second giving no rest night or day is tied to Temür, that is, Aktemür. So the two commanders are named each in a line of his own. "Baras" is the old form in which the name of Bursa is written in the work, and "Baras teküri" stands for the Byzantine governor of Bursa. "'Anâd", obstinacy, in the last line presents the infidel's refusal to surrender both as military resistance and as blind religious stubbornness. Kaladan, belâdan and 'anâdan meet in the sound "-âdan"; a piece of two couplets leaves no room for a refrain.
Bibliography
- Âşık Paşazade, Osmanoğulları'nın Tarihi, ed. Kemal Yavuz, M. A. Yekta Saraç, Istanbul: K Kitaplığı, 2003, p. 344 (transliterated text, bâb 18).
