Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Yine bir dahı nakş bagladı 'aklı
Getürdi fikrine hem niçe naklı
Aradan götürür mihr ü mahabbet
Düze bir dahı düzen boza şekli
Kıyar işi vü dostı kardaşına
Dimez Hak'dan ne ola baña bezli
Günâh didükleri gelmez ögine
İdinür hôş temessük hâl-i cehli
Nizâm-ı 'âleme dir bu sebebdür
Kabâhat görmez özine o fi'li
Nazar itseñ bu fi'lüñ fâ'iline
Ezelden şöyle yazmış bunı Mevlî
Cihân müzd ü günâh-ılan yapıldı
İkisinüñ dahı ehli tapıldı
Kuruldı bu cihân hayme-i hâlî
Yine tizcek o haymeler dürüldi
Velî hayme kuran kāyimmakāmdur
Hezârân hayme kuruldı bozuldı
Bu eyvân kim görürsin iy karındaş
Kamu bir sâni'üñ sun'ı göründi
In English
1. Once again reason has woven a pattern; it brought many a tale to its thought.
2. It removes love and affection from between; let it set up one more order and break the shape.
3. It slays its own work and friend and brother; it does not ask, "what recompense will there be for me from God."
4. What they call sin does not come to its mind; it takes the state of ignorance as a pleasant support.
5. It says, "this is the reason for the order of the world"; it does not see that deed as a fault in itself.
6. If you look at the doer of this deed, the Lord wrote it thus from eternity.
7. The world was built with reward and sin; the people of both were found.
8. This world was set up as an empty tent; those tents were again quickly folded.
9. But He who pitches the tent is the One who abides; thousands of tents were pitched and struck.
10. O brother, this hall you see appeared, all of it, as the art of one Maker.
Literary and Historical Commentary
"Do Not Take Me to My Brother"
Leaving Edirne, Murad is at İznik on the ninth day; so the eighty-ninth chapter begins. Young Mustafa is in the bath at the time. Köse Mihaloğlu Mehmed Beg surrounds the citadel with troops and rides to the shore gate; the townspeople open the gate. As Mihaloğlu enters, Taceddinoğlu, waiting ready inside the gate, unhorses him with a lance and strikes him again through the heart where he lies; Mihaloğlu's slaves cut Taceddinoğlu to pieces. In this confusion Şarabdar İlyas takes Mustafa in his arms. Mustafa asks, "Tutor, why do you seize me?" The tutor says, "I am taking you to your brother." Mustafa pleads: "Do not take me to my brother, for my brother will kill me." The tutor falls silent and takes him to the khan; Murad, on seeing him, gives orders to the executioner. Mustafa is sent to Bursa, to lie beside his father, and buried according to the sacred law.
The Order of the World
The work's longest and most thought-provoking words on fratricide fill ten couplets. The first five couplets paint the portrait of a reason that slays its brother: it removes love, breaks the old shape to set up a new order, does not think of sin, and takes its ignorance as a support. The fifth couplet openly names the justification of Ottoman policy on this matter: "Nizâm-ı 'âleme dir bu sebebdür", he says this is for the order of the world, and does not see the deed as a fault. The author reports this justification but does not make it his own. After the sixth couplet the view changes: behind the doer stands an eternal writing; the world was made with reward and sin, and each has its people. The last three couplets liken the world to tents pitched and struck; He who pitches the tent is the One who abides. So the author, on one hand, openly condemns fratricide and, on the other, sees it too within a divine order of its own. There are two separate rhyme series: the first six couplets rhyme with the sounds "-klı/-kli/-zli/-'li", the last four with "-ldı/-ldi".
Bibliography
- Âşık Paşazade, Osmanoğulları'nın Tarihi, ed. Kemal Yavuz, M. A. Yekta Saraç, Istanbul: K Kitaplığı, 2003, pp. 440-441 (transliterated text, bâb 89).
