Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Dânişmend beglik ister gör asıldı
Çürük ok atdı hem yayı yasıldı
Hevâ-yı nefs anı başdan çıkardı
Uzun sanuları kırdı kısıldı
Dilerdi ceng ideydi pâdişâhlan
Dahı ograşmadın sındı basıldı
İki oglın kodı İznik'de gitdi
Yanında çok sûfî başı kesildi
In English
1. See, the scholar sought lordship and was hanged; he shot a rotten arrow, and his bow too was broken.
2. The passion of the self led him astray; his long fancies were broken, (he himself) was hemmed in.
3. He wished to make war on the sovereign; before they even met he broke and was crushed.
4. He left two sons in İznik and went; beside him the heads of many Sufis were cut off.
Literary and Historical Commentary
A Ruling at Serres
The end of the son of the kadı of Simavna comes in the seventy-eighth chapter. While he waits in the forest of Ağaç Denizi a following gathers round him: he has promised banners and governorships, and the men to whom he had given timars as military judge in Musa's time have come to him too. But those who come see that there is no good in his affair and seize him. He is brought to Mehmed Çelebi at Serres. With Mehmed is a learned man named Mevlânâ Haydar who has come from Persia; he is asked about this man's condition and is told, "this man is a scholar". Mevlânâ Haydar gives his ruling: "His blood is lawful and his property unlawful." The son of the kadı is taken away and hanged by the neck in the middle of the market, before the people, in front of a shop. After his death some of his disciples take him down and bury him somewhere.
A Rotten Arrow
A single image of an archer carries the scholar's lust for rule: he has shot a rotten arrow, and his bow has broken. The second couplet ties the cause to "hevâ-yı nefs", the passion of the self; long fancies have broken and he has been hemmed in. The third tells of his wish to fight the sultan and his collapse before the meeting. The fourth couplet lists what remains: the two sons he left in İznik and the Sufis beheaded beside him. The refrain is "-sıldı/-ıldı": asıldı, yasıldı, kısıldı, basıldı, kesildi. In the rest of the chapter the author answers the question whether the son of the kadı died in the faith with "God knows"; this caution is taken up in the second verse of the same chapter.
Bibliography
- Âşık Paşazade, Osmanoğulları'nın Tarihi, ed. Kemal Yavuz, M. A. Yekta Saraç, Istanbul: K Kitaplığı, 2003, p. 428 (transliterated text, bâb 78).
