Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Bular birlige bitdi oñdı işler
Safâlar sürdiler çok yaz u kışlar
Dürişdiler nizâm-ı İslâm-ıçun
Akıtdılar kan u kesildi başlar
Niçe zahm urdılar uruldılar hem
Niçeler dir ki kanı kardaşlar
Esir satuban u hem almadılar
Olınmadı esîr-içün savaşlar
In English
1. These became one and affairs prospered; many summers and winters they lived in joy.
2. They fought for the order of Islam; they shed blood, heads were cut off.
3. Many wounds they struck and were wounded too; many say, "where are the brothers".
4. They neither sold nor bought captives; the wars were not fought for captives.
Literary and Historical Commentary
A Robe, a Purse and a Few Flocks of Sheep
With Osman dead, his legacy is to be divided; the twenty-ninth chapter tells of the sharing. It turns out that between the two brothers there is only the conquered land; there is no gold, no silver coin, no treasure. Osman has left a robe, a purse, a salt cellar, a spoon case, a sokman kid-leather vessel, a few good horses, a few flocks of sheep, some mares at Sultanöyüğü and a few pairs of saddle cloths. The author says the "beglik" sheep grazing around Bursa descend from those sheep. Orhan asks his brother, "What do you say?" Alâeddin Paşa says the land belongs to God, that a ruler is needed to shepherd it and that the means of rule are these mares and sheep, and he leaves the shepherding to Orhan. Orhan offers him the rank of paşa; Alâeddin refuses and asks only for the village of Fodura on the plain of Kite. He builds a tekke at Kükürtlü and two mosques in Bursa.
Unity and Gazâ
Right after the brothers' agreement comes praise of unity: the first couplet counts its fruits, the second gazâ, the third its cost. The question "kanı kardaşlar", where are the brothers, in the third couplet is a voice of mourning looking for the dead. The last couplet generalises a remark made in the prose about the Göynük raid: the wars were not fought to buy and sell captives. Read alongside the raids rich in captives described elsewhere in the work, this remark can also be taken as the expression of an ideal by which Âşıkpaşazâde wished to set the first gazis apart from later generations. The sound "-şlar" recurs at five line ends: işler, kışlar, başlar, kardaşlar, savaşlar.
Bibliography
- Âşık Paşazade, Osmanoğulları'nın Tarihi, ed. Kemal Yavuz, M. A. Yekta Saraç, Istanbul: K Kitaplığı, 2003, p. 361 (transliterated text, bâb 29).
