Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mefʿûlü mefâʿilün feʿûlün. The pattern has been identified by us; in the intermediary source some lines do not fit it exactly.

'Ömrüm ki bu dem irişdi hadde
Heştâd u şeş bu yıl u sedde
Gördüm bu cihân gazâsını çok
Gelmez hisâba anılmazı yok
Devrümde olanı defter itdüm
Oğuz'dan olan Gök Alp'a gitdüm
Yazdum menâkıb-ı Âl-i 'Osmân
Guzât-ı kâmil ü han u sultân
Didüm ki diyem neseb ü neslin
Kim añlayasın bu hanlar aslın
Neden oldı anı beyân ideyüm
Bu gâzileri ki 'âyân ideyüm

In English

1. My life has now reached its limit: this year I am eighty-six. (The word "sedde" at the end of the line is not explained in the intermediary source; it may be the Persian "sede", century.)

2. I have seen much of the holy war (gazâ) of this world; it cannot be counted, and there is none among it unworthy of mention.

3. I set down in a register what happened in my own time; I went back as far as Gök Alp, whose line came from Oğuz.

4. I wrote the legends of the House of Osman: perfect warriors for the faith (gazi), khans and sultans.

5. I said I would tell their lineage and descent, so that you may understand the origin of these khans.

6. Let me explain why it came about; let me make these warriors plain to see.

Literary and Historical Commentary

A Historian Who States His Age

The first line of the mesnevi is one of the rare testimonies used for the author's biography. "Heştâd u şeş" is Persian for eighty-six. Emine Sonnur Özcan connects this couplet with the year 889 (1484), when Bayezid II set out on his Moldavian campaign, and from it takes Âşıkpaşazâde's birth back to 1398; in her view this date, compared with 1400, which rests on another record in the work, gives a more reasonable age for the years when the author listened to historical narratives in Geyve. The line thus becomes a dated record showing when both the poem and the work were written. The word "sedde", which has no explanation in the source, leaves the reading uncertain. If it is read as "sede" (century), from the Persian "sad", hundred, the line would mean "eighty-six this year and this century"; this reading is not certain.

A Work Introducing Itself

The remaining couplets are a passage of introduction in which the author describes his own work. The aged historian first puts forward his testimony: he has seen much of the world's holy wars, and there is no end to counting them. Then he states his method: he has set down what happened in his own time and traced the lineage of the House of Osman back to Gök Alp, who came from Oğuz. In the fourth couplet the title of the work appears almost as it stands: "menâkıb-ı Âl-i 'Osmân". Özcan notes that the work opens with the words "Hâzâ menâkıb u tevârîh-i Âl-i 'Osmân" and says that these couplets build in the reader's mind the image of a perfect community of warriors for the faith made up of khans and sultans. The line "Guzât-ı kâmil ü han u sultân" does exactly this: the sultans are first of all gazis.

The language of the poem is as plain as the prose of the chronicle; instead of ornament, enumeration, testimony and a statement of purpose come to the fore. In its content the passage can be read as a verse preface to the whole work.

On the Text

The text is taken from Özcan's article; she quotes it from page 320 of the 2003 edition by Kemal Yavuz and M. A. Yekta Saraç. In the article the couplets are set in two columns. In the first four rows the left and right columns form the two lines of one couplet; in the last two rows the columns do not agree with the rhyme. Here the last two couplets have been paired according to their rhymes ("neslin / aslın", "ideyüm / ideyüm"). The order and readings could not be verified, since the edition itself could not be consulted. For his life and the full argument over his date of birth, see Âşıkî (Âşıkpaşazâde).

Bibliography

  • Emine Sonnur Özcan, "Âşıkpaşazâde Târihi'nde Osmanlı Hâkimiyet Söylemi ve Terminolojisi", OTAM, no. 38, 2015, pp. 141-156 (pp. 143-146). https://dergipark.org.tr/en/download/article-file/2160438
  • Âşık Paşazade, Osmanoğulları'nın Tarihi, ed. Kemal Yavuz, M. A. Yekta Saraç, Istanbul: K Kitaplığı, 2003, p. 320 (as quoted by Özcan).

Online sources