Photo: Dosseman, CC BY-SA 4.0

Manzume 33 — Gönüldi bir sefere dahı anlar

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

Four couplets that tell the deaths of Osman Gazi and his father-in-law Edebali as a "campaign", built on the image of an eight-legged mount and a journey with no return.

Contents 4

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

Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Gönüldi bir sefere dahı anlar
Mücerred yaluñuz kim geye tonlar

Atı var bindügi sekiz ayaklu
Öñince çavuşı dir gayrı onlar

Uzak sefer-turur yakında gelmez
Geçer niçe yıl u gündüz ü dünler

Yoluñdur menzilüñ gör kanda irer
Âşıkî kim öñünçe gitdi anlar

In English

1. They set out on one more campaign, alone, with only the garment they wear.

2. The horse they ride has eight legs; the herald going before them now says "they".

3. It is a far campaign, it does not return soon; many years, days and nights pass.

4. This is your road too; see where your stage will lead, Âşıkî; they went on before you.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Two Deaths

The first lines of the twenty-eighth chapter bring news of death. Edebali, father of Orhan Gazi's mother, dies a month before his daughter; both are buried in the fortress of Bilecik. Osman Gazi dies three months later in Söğüt. Orhan is in Bursa at the time; Osman is left in temporary keeping, Orhan comes, fulfils the testament and lays his father in Bursa inside the Silver Dome. The author adds that Osman had buried his father-in-law and his wife Malhun with his own hands.

The Eight-Legged Horse

Death is told here as a campaign. The dead set out "mücerred", alone and freed of worldly burdens; they wear only a shroud. The "eight-legged horse" of the second couplet is the eight legs of the four men who carry the coffin on their shoulders; it is also a riddle image known in Turkish folk poetry. The çavuş, herald, is the officer who walks in front of the army on campaign and clears the way; here the herald going ahead now speaks of them as "they", those no longer among us. The third couplet describes the journey with no return, and the last turns the words to the author himself. An author past eighty thinking of his own last stage while telling of Osman's death can be read together with the line in the introduction "'Ömrüm ki bu dem irişdi hadde", my life has now reached its limit. The suffix "-lar" forms the refrain; the rhyme rests on anlar, tonlar, onlar, dünler, anlar.