Photo: Zeynel Cebeci, CC BY-SA 4.0

Manzume 8 — Cihânda her kişi kim ad komışdur

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

Four couplets on leaving a good or bad name, spoken after the Seljuk sultan Alâeddin defeated the Tatars who had burned Ereğli and the place came to be called "Taşak Yazısı".

Contents 4

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

Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Cihânda her kişi kim ad komışdur
Ya acı ya şîrîn kim dad komışdur

Nişândur söylenür dilde vü ilde
Sûreti bozılur bünyâd komışdur

Gider kendüsi ad kalur cihânda
Adına söylenür falan komışdur

İnanuñ bu söze vallâh ki direm
Kara-durur yüzi kim yalan komışdur

In English

1. Whoever in the world has left a name has left a taste behind, either bitter or sweet.

2. A name is a sign, spoken in tongues and in lands; the outward form decays, but what he left is a building.

3. He himself goes, his name remains in the world; of him it is said, "so-and-so left this behind."

4. Believe these words, by God I say it: black is the face of him who has left behind a lie.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Taşak Yazısı

Leaving Karacahisar, the Seljuk sultan Alâeddin turned towards Ereğli, as the seventh chapter tells. Bayıncar Tatar met him, they fought for two days and two nights at the mound of Biga, and the Tatar army was routed. Âşıkpaşazâde describes plainly what the sultan's men did to the Tatars: the captives were castrated, their skins sewn together, wrapped in felt and thrown to the animals; "ad-ıçun", so that the name would remain. For that reason, the author says, the plain was still called "Taşak Yazısı" in his day. The couplets are spoken over this grim name.

A Bitter or a Sweet Name

The refrain is "komışdur", has left behind: each couplet asks what someone leaves behind. The first couplet sets the two possibilities side by side, a bitter or a sweet taste; the second says the name remains like a building while the outward form decays. The contrast leaves open whether what the sultan did to the Tatars is a monument of victory or a bitter memory; the poem leaves the verdict to the reader. The last couplet says the face of one who leaves a lie behind is black; here the author swears "vallâh ki direm", by God I say it, and vouches for the truth of his own account. In later chapters too Âşıkpaşazâde often repeats that he saw what he tells or heard it from someone he trusted. The same refrain and the same first line are used once more in the verse of the nineteenth chapter, during the siege of Bursa; there the one who leaves a name is Osman Gazi, who leaves behind gazâ and justice.