Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Gazâ kim 'Osmân itdi iy karındaş
Saçıldı kanlar u kesildi çok baş
Ol Aytogdı kim anda şehîd oldı
Bile öldi niçe hem iş ü yoldaş
Daranos [Dıranos] tekürin tutdılar anda
Anuñ üzre dahı çok oldı savaş
Baras tekür hisâra kaçdı girdi
Ve hem Kite teküri oldı kallâş
Bozıldı hisârı alındı mâlı
Tekür dahı oldı cimri kallâş
Cihânda her kişi kim ad komışdur
Yanında acı şîrîn dad komışdur
Kodı 'Osmân gazâyı 'adl u bezli
Neseb ü nesline du'â komışdur
'Âşıkî bu menâkıb yazmagına
İmâmı Orhan oglından komışdur

In English

1. My brother, in the gazâ that Osman fought blood was spilled and many heads were cut off.

2. With Aytoğdı, who fell as a martyr there, many comrades and companions died as well.

3. There they captured the tekfur of Daranos; on his account too there was much fighting.

4. The tekfur of Bursa fled into his fortress; the tekfur of Kite too was brought to a wretched state.

5. His fortress was broken, his wealth taken; the tekfur became a miserly wretch.

6. Whoever in the world has left a name has left beside it a bitter or a sweet taste.

7. Osman left gazâ, justice and generosity; to his line and lineage he left prayer.

8. To write these legends Âşıkî has taken (his source) from the son of Orhan's imam.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Villages Granted at Yenişehir

A short prose passage opens the nineteenth chapter: Osman Gazi comes to Yenişehir, seizes the lands of the surrounding infidels who had fought him and makes them prosper "with justice and fairness". Each gazi is given villages and land, each is looked after according to his rank, and the gazis around Osman grow strong and are always eager for gazâ. Within this scene of calm the verse recalls the battle of Koyunhisarı and Dinboz told two chapters earlier: the death of Aytoğdı, the capture of the tekfur of Adranos (Daranos), the flight of the tekfur of Bursa into his fortress, the end of the tekfur of Kite.

The Signature of a Source

The couplets run on two different rhymes. The first five are in the sound "-aş" (karındaş, baş, yoldaş, savaş, kallâş); the last three pass to the refrain "komışdur", has left, and repeat almost word for word the first line of the verse "Cihânda her kişi kim ad komışdur" in the seventh chapter. There, whether the name one leaves is bitter or sweet remained a question; here the answer is given: what Osman left is gazâ, justice and generosity. In the last couplet the source of the book is named again. "İmâmı Orhan oglı", the son of Orhan's imam, is Yahşı Fakıh, son of İshak Fakıh, Orhan Gazi's imam; in the introduction Âşıkpaşazâde said he found the legends down to Yıldırım Bayezid written down by him. The introduction to the edition also recalls that the author stayed in his youth at Yahşı Fakıh's house in Geyve. That the pen name appears in this couplet together with a statement of source strengthens the attribution of the piece to the author.

Bibliography

  • Âşık Paşazade, Osmanoğulları'nın Tarihi, ed. Kemal Yavuz, M. A. Yekta Saraç, Istanbul: K Kitaplığı, 2003, p. 345 (transliterated text, bâb 19).
  • Kemal Yavuz, M. A. Yekta Saraç, "Önsöz" and "Hayatı ve 'Tarih'iyle Âşık Paşazade", in Âşık Paşazade, Osmanoğulları'nın Tarihi, Istanbul: K Kitaplığı, 2003, pp. 25-48.