Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mefâîlün mefâîlün mefâîlün mefâîlün (hezec; the pattern is marked in Jacob's edition)

Bizümle saltanat lâfın idermiş ol Karamânî
Hudâ fursat virürse ger kara yire karam anı

In English

1. That man of Karaman, they say, talks of sovereignty with us (claims the throne against us); if God gives the chance, I will mingle him with the black earth (bury him).

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This single couplet is among Mehmed II's best-known sayings, yet it never made its way into the divan's manuscript in the Millet Library. Latîfî quotes it in the entry on Sultan Mehmed in his tezkire, after giving two fine opening couplets of the sultan, and records that it was spoken "Karaman oğlı ile husûmeti husûsında", that is, because of the enmity between him and the Karamanid lord. Georg Jacob, in his 1904 edition, prints the couplet as the nineteenth piece in Arabic script, drawing on Latîfî and on the history of Enderunlu Atâ: "بزیله سلطنت لافن ایدرمش اول قرامانی / خدا فرصت ویریرسه کر قرا یره قرام آنی". In Jacob's text the first word is "bizile"; he notes in a footnote that Atâ writes "بزمله" (bizümle). Doğan's text agrees with Atâ's reading. Since its two lines rhyme with each other, the couplet has the form of an opening couplet (matla'), and Latîfî too calls it a "matla'". The metre, as Jacob also marks it, is the four-"mefâîlün" pattern of hezec.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The couplet departs entirely from the divan's language of love; instead of a beloved it addresses a political rival, and it is an open threat. It draws all its force from the play of sound in its last words. The rhyme "Karamânî" is answered by "kara yire karam anı": "karmak" means to mix, and "kara yere karmak", to mix someone with the black earth, means to bury, to destroy him. Jacob, however, reads the words in his footnote as "kyram any", that is, "kıram anı" (I will break him, crush him), and notes that together with "kara yere" they form a tecnis, a pun, with the word "Karamânî"; in both readings the play of sound is the same. The rival's name is hidden inside the words that announce his fate. The word "lâf" (empty talk) is also contemptuous: the Karamanid's claim to sovereignty is mere words.

Historical Context

The sources differ on which lord of Karaman the couplet was written against. Jacob says in the introduction to his edition that this piece must have been written shortly before the subjugation of the Karamanid İbrahim Bey in 1451; in 1451, the year he came to the throne for the second time, Mehmed II marched against İbrahim Bey, advanced as far as Akşehir and made peace. Doğan, by contrast, writes that the couplet refers to Mehmed II's conquest of the lands of the Karamanid Kasım Bey, who had allied himself with his enemies, and to the abolition of the principality; the Turkish commentary of the edition gives the date of this event as 1472, its English translation as 1475. Since the couplet carries no date, it cannot be said with certainty which interpretation is right. The question of Karaman lasted throughout Mehmed II's reign, and the principality could be joined to the Ottoman lands only in his last years.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Fâtih Sultan Mehmed (Avnî), Fâtih Dîvânı ve Şerhi / Dīwān of Sultan Mehmed II with Commentary, ed. Muhammet Nur Doğan, English trans. Michael D. Sheridan, 3rd ed., Istanbul: Türkiye Yazma Eserler Kurumu Başkanlığı, 2023, poem 80, pp. 553-554 (not in Millet 305; Jacob 1904, p. 17 (XIX, from Latîfî and Atâ)). https://ekitap.yek.gov.tr/urun/fatih-divani-ve-serhi--ucuncu-baski-_794.aspx
  • Georg Jacob (ed.), Der Divan Sultan Mehmeds des Zweiten, des Eroberers von Konstantinopel, zum ersten Male nach der Uppsalaer Handschrift, Berlin: Mayer & Müller, 1904, p. 4 (introduction) and p. 17 (XIX, Arabic-script text and footnotes). https://archive.org/details/derdivansultanm00jacogoog
  • Latîfî, Tezkiretü'ş-Şuarâ ve Tabsıratü'n-Nuzamâ (İnceleme-Metin), ed. Rıdvan Canım, Ankara: Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı (e-book), 2018, pp. 99-100 (entry on Sultan Mehmed).

Online sources