Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Koñur Alp kılıcı Bolı'ya saldı
Velî Akyazı'da Düzbâzâr'ı aldı
Uzunca Bil'de kâfire bulandı
İki gün iki gice hoş dürişdi
Oradan kâfiri döndürdi kogdı
Koñur Alp döndi Düzbâzâr'a geldi
Akova'ya segirdür oldı Koca
Gāzi Rahmân yaturmaz halkı gice
Çıkar İstanbol'uñ kâfiri dem dem
Kırar bunları gāziler iy hoca

In English

1. Konur Alp swung his sword towards Bolu; but in Akyazı he took Düzbazar.

2. At Uzunca Bel he came upon the infidel; for two days and two nights he fought well.

3. From there he turned the infidel back and chased him; Konur Alp returned and came to Düzbazar.

4. (Akça) Koca took to raiding Akova; Gazi Rahman lets no one sleep at night.

5. The infidels of Constantinople come out from time to time; O master, the gazis cut them down.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Pressure on İznik

After Karatekin is taken Orhan returns to his father in Yenişehir. Men are stationed at Karaçepüş and Karatekin, and the two places become like a "havale", a siege tower, against İznik: from time to time the gazis lay waste İznik's gardens and give the town no rest. On one side Konur Alp is busy with Akyazı, on the other Akça Koca with the district of İznikmid (İzmit). The author says the frontiers were "worked hard", and that the gazis toiled so that the conquests would last, not sleeping at night and not dismounting by day.

A Map of the Frontier

Bolu, Akyazı, Düzbazar, Uzunca Bel, Akova, Constantinople: the couplets move like a string of place names. Each couplet tells of one commander's raid in one direction, and so the poem draws, like a small map, the spread of the Ottoman frontier west and north of the Sakarya. Konur Alp "swinging his sword towards Bolu" and yet taking Düzbazar plainly marks the difference between a raid's aim and its result. "Koca" in the fourth couplet is Akça Koca; "Gāzi Rahmân" is Gazi Abdurrahman, whose name returns in the twenty-sixth chapter on the conquest of Aydos. Each couplet makes its own rhyme (aldı with dürişdi, kogdı with geldi, Koca with gice, dem dem with hoca); this is one of the places where Âşıkpaşazâde holds to the narrative more than to the rhyme. "Iy hoca", O master, in the last couplet is the voice of a narrator turning to the listener of the legend.

Bibliography

  • Âşık Paşazade, Osmanoğulları'nın Tarihi, ed. Kemal Yavuz, M. A. Yekta Saraç, Istanbul: K Kitaplığı, 2003, pp. 350-351 (transliterated text, bâb 22).