Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Tatar bulmaz-ıdı ayran içeydi
Dere vü taga hem konup geçeydi
Yanında büzme yançugı vü çakmak
Bulımaz kav ki çakmagın çakaydı
Sürüldi geldi akın begi oldı
Kâfir kızın gözedür kim kapaydı
Didiler Minnetoglı Gāzi olmış
Gazâ yolında bulsa cân ataydı
In English
1. The Tatar could not find buttermilk to drink; he would camp by stream and mountain and pass on.
2. Beside him he had his pouch and his flint; he could not find tinder to strike his steel.
3. He was driven out, came, and became a raider chief; he watches for an infidel girl to seize.
4. They said, "Minnet's son has become a gazi"; if he found (a chance) on the path of gazâ he would throw his life into it.
Literary and Historical Commentary
The Tatars of İskilip
On his way back to Bursa after taking Samsun, Mehmed Çelebi passes through İskilip, and there the seventy-sixth chapter begins. There he sees many Tatar households and asks whose they are: they are Minnet Beg's; the Tatar Samakaroğlu has held a wedding and they have gone to it. Mehmed turns to Bayezid Paşa: they had said Timur took the Tatars away from this land, yet their lords hold weddings here and visit one another, but are not to be found on my campaigns; they must be driven across to Rumelia. Minnet Beg is summoned, all are driven across to the district of Plovdiv and given land near the fortress of Konuş. Minnet's son Mehmed Beg builds an imaret and a caravanserai at Konuş, and they settle and remain there. This event takes place at İskilip near Amasya, that is within the province of Rum; it appears that Mehmed passed through the district of Amasya on his return from the Samsun campaign.
From Buttermilk to Gazâ
From nomads without buttermilk to raider chiefs: four couplets tell a story of transformation. The first two couplets draw the Tatars' former state: they could not find buttermilk to drink and wandered, camping by stream and mountain; they had flint in their pouch but no tinder to light. This is the account of a poor nomadic life. In the third couplet exile turns into a rise: the deported Tatar becomes a raider chief and watches for an infidel girl to carry off. The fourth couplet reports that Minnet's son is called a gazi. This piece gives a concrete example of the Ottoman settlement policy that, by moving the nomadic communities of Anatolia to Rumelia, both reduced an internal danger and gained frontier strength. The refrain is "-aydı/-eydi": içeydi, geçeydi, çakaydı, kapaydı, ataydı.
Bibliography
- Âşık Paşazade, Osmanoğulları'nın Tarihi, ed. Kemal Yavuz, M. A. Yekta Saraç, Istanbul: K Kitaplığı, 2003, pp. 425-426 (transliterated text, bâb 76).
