Photo: Elelicht, CC BY-SA 3.0

Manzume 95 — Öñümde iki deryâ sed olupdur

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

A prayer in Murad's voice, four couplets long: the Pretender bribes the kadı of Biga to cross, hauls the Gallipoli ships ashore, and Murad is held up at Lapseki.

Contents 4

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

Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Öñümde iki deryâ sed olupdur
Biri hayret birisi âb olupdur

Bu hayret yavlak aldı bini benden
Meded-gîrüm hemîn Allah olupdur

Murâd-bahşsın murâdın vir Murâd'uñ
Ümîdüm yâ İlâh saña kalupdur

Elin tut ben yetîmüñ yâ İlâhî
Dile maksûduñı Murâd olupdur

In English

1. Two seas have become a barrier before me; one is bewilderment, one is water.

2. This bewilderment has carried me away from myself; my helper is God alone.

3. You are the Granter of wishes; grant Murad his wish; O God, my hope rests in You.

4. Take the hand of me, Your orphan, O God; your wish to be asked has become Murad.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Waiting at Lapseki

The fleeing Pretender Mustafa reaches the Biga river in the eighty-fifth chapter; he cannot cross, gives the kadı of Biga many florins, and the kadı shows him a ford. He crosses with five or ten men, having abandoned all his baggage. On the third day he reaches Gallipoli, has every ship there hauled ashore, forbids any ship to cross to the other side and has the shores guarded. Murad follows, reaches Biga, and learning that the kadı showed Mustafa the ford, has him hanged by the neck at the head of the ford. Then he goes down to Lapseki and camps. With the ships hauled ashore, the way across to Rumelia is closed.

Two Seas

Spoken in Murad's voice, four couplets turn this helplessness into a prayer. Before him are two seas: one real water, the straits of the Dardanelles, the other bewilderment. This second sea is the perplexity of a ruler who does not know what to do, and it has carried him away from himself. The third couplet plays on the name: God is "murâd-bahş", granter of wishes, and is asked to grant Murad his wish. In the fourth couplet Murad calls himself "yetîm", an orphan; the voice of a young ruler left alone after the death of his father Mehmed Çelebi is heard. The refrain is "olupdur", and the rhyme is made with sed, âb, Allah, kalupdur. Whether the couplets are Murad's actual words is not known; Âşıkpaşazâde often gives such prayers in the mouths of rulers, and there is a similar prayer of Murad Han before Kosovo in the work.