Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Cihân bir nev'a sûret tutmamışdur
Cihânlan oynayanlar utmamışdur
Ne zâhir itmedi bu suffa-i yeng
Kim anı kara toprak itmemişdür
In English
1. The world has never kept a single form; those who played with the world have not won.
2. Whatever it displayed, has not the black earth in the end done away with it.
Literary and Historical Commentary
The Second Piece of the Amasya Chapter
Under the heading "Diger nazm", another verse, these two couplets follow directly on the verse spoken in Taharten's voice in the sixty-fifth chapter. The prose of the chapter tells of Bayezid's great advance in the east: Amasya received from its lord, Sivas given to Emir Süleyman, Erzincan, Divriği, Malatya, Derende and Behisni. This expansion would be reversed at a stroke a few years later with Timur's coming.
Those Who Play with the World
Set in the middle of a page that counts conquests, the two couplets stand like a warning. The world does not remain in one form; those who enter into play with it have not won. "Utmak" means to win at a game, and was used earlier in the verse on Osman's wedding raid, "çok başlar ütdi", he won many heads; here the same verb, in the negative, describes a game that cannot be won against the world. The phrase "suffa-i yeng" in the first line of the second couplet is not clear; the edition gives no explanation. "Suffa" may mean a sofa or dais; the line says that every ornament and rank the world displays will in the end return to the black earth. With them the chapter on Amasya's passing to the Ottomans comes to a close, and the two verses side by side give it its tone: on one side a lord grieving for his hostage family, on the other the transience of all these conquests. The rhyme rests on "-tmamışdur/-tmemişdür". For the situation of Amasya in this period see also the page Kadı Burhaneddin.
Bibliography
- Âşık Paşazade, Osmanoğulları'nın Tarihi, ed. Kemal Yavuz, M. A. Yekta Saraç, Istanbul: K Kitaplığı, 2003, p. 405 (transliterated text, bâb 65).
