Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Samandıra'yı yakdı iş erleri gör
Ne işler itdürür bu iş eri gör
Döküp kanlar u başlar oynadılar
Bu gāziler olan serverleri gör
Cihâna togrı geldi togrı gitdi
Şol ok gibi turan togrıları gör
Nireye ok varursa mecrûh ider
Ol okı atan u server yayı gör
Atan atduran gayret-i erdür
Ol erde olan mazharları gör
In English
1. See, the men of deeds burned Samandıra; see what this master of deeds causes to be done.
2. Shedding blood they staked their heads; see those who are the leaders of these gazis.
3. He came straight into the world and went straight; see those who stand straight like an arrow.
4. Wherever the arrow reaches it wounds; see the one who shoots that arrow and the leader's bow.
5. The one who shoots and the one who makes him shoot is the zeal of a man; see the manifestations in that man.
Literary and Historical Commentary
The Letter Tied to a Stone
When the daughter of the tekfur of Aydos sees the man of her dream among the besiegers, she writes a letter in Greek: let them send the men they trust most on a certain night, and she will take the fortress for them herself. She ties the letter to a stone and throws it down as if fighting. By chance the stone falls before Gazi Rahman; the letter is taken to Akça Koca and someone who reads Greek is found. Akça Koca asks for a champion "to stake his head and make a name", and Gazi Rahman says he is ready. Konur Alp proposes a stratagem: to set fire to the fortress where they are camped and pretend to have moved off. That fortress is Samandıra. The infidels of Aydos rejoice and give themselves to feasting; on the promised night the girl lets down a rope from the wall, Gazi Rahman climbs it "like a spider", kills the gatekeeper and opens the gate. The tekfur, lying drunk, is seized; by morning Akça Koca arrives too and the fortress is taken.
The Refrain "Gör"
Every couplet ends with "gör", see, and so makes the reader look at the heroes of the story as a spectator would. "İş erleri" and "iş eri" in the first couplet make a pun; the first are the champions who do the deed, the second the one who causes it to be done, which can be understood as God or fortune. In the third and fourth couplets the image of arrow and bow is at work: uprightness is the straightness of the arrow, while hitting the mark is the strength of the archer. The last couplet ties that strength to "gayret-i er", a man's zeal, and with the word "mazhar" returns again to the language of Sufism: what appears in the champion is a manifestation of divine power. Gazi Rahman's climb up the rope and the girl's betrayal are not mentioned in the poem; the verse leaves the details of the event to the prose and builds a praise in its place.
Bibliography
- Âşık Paşazade, Osmanoğulları'nın Tarihi, ed. Kemal Yavuz, M. A. Yekta Saraç, Istanbul: K Kitaplığı, 2003, p. 358 (transliterated text, bâb 26).
