Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Ne vakt eksildi 'âlem intikāli
Meger olmaya halkuñ kîl ü kāli
Bu halkuñ kîl u kāli eksük olmaz
Husûsâ beglerüñ çokdur cidâli
Bular âdem yeyen yurda benüm dir
Bu yurd aç kurt gibi virmez mecâli
'Ömür gaflet atına bindi gitdi
Konagında hâzır bulur eceli
'Âşıkî dile Hak'dan kim virile
Bu Âl-i 'Osmân'a ol Hak cemâli
In English
1. When did the passing of the world from hand to hand ever lessen; unless it be that people's gossip should cease.
2. The gossip of these people never lessens; above all the strife of lords is great.
3. They say "mine" of a land that devours men; this land is like a hungry wolf, it gives no respite.
4. Life has mounted the horse of heedlessness and gone; at its stopping place it finds its death waiting.
5. Âşıkî, ask of God that the beauty of God be granted to this House of Osman.
Literary and Historical Commentary
Conquest Through Justice
Bayezid takes Alaşehir in the fifty-eighth chapter; at the beginning of this section the edition says that Alaşehir had remained as an infidel city amid Ottoman lands. Then the lord of Aydın is brought from Ayasuluğ to Tire; Ayasuluğ is given to a slave of the sultan, but the endowments of the house of Aydın are left in his hands and it is pledged that he will not be removed from the land as long as he lives. Saruhan is taken in the same way; when the two lords die shortly afterwards, the land of Saruhan is joined to Karasi and given to Bayezid's son Ertuğrul. The lord of Menteşe flees to Timur and his cavalrymen go over to Bayezid. A question and answer asks whether these conquests were made by force or by justice, and the answer is plain: all by justice, because the former lords had oppressed the people. These conquests are dated to 792 (1390).
The Lords' Quarrels
In the couplets the annexation of the Anatolian principalities is a change of ownership. "İntikāl" is the passing of a thing from hand to hand; the world never ceases to change hands, and people's gossip never ends. The image in the third couplet is harsh: the lords claim ownership of a land that "devours men", but the land is like a hungry wolf and gives no one respite. This couplet can also be read as an allusion to the lords who fled to Timur and would later play a part in the battle of Ankara. At the close the pen name Âşıkî comes with a prayer: may God's beauty be granted to the House of Osman. İntikāli, kāli, cidâli, mecâli, eceli, cemâli: six rhyme words meet in the sound "-âli/-eli".
Bibliography
- Âşık Paşazade, Osmanoğulları'nın Tarihi, ed. Kemal Yavuz, M. A. Yekta Saraç, Istanbul: K Kitaplığı, 2003, p. 396 (transliterated text, bâb 58).
