Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Düzd alur mansıbın i'lâsını dogru almaz
Biz dahî alır idik olsa bir uğru almaz

In English

1. The thief takes the highest of offices, the honest man does not; we too would have taken one, if there were one a thief did not take. (The second line can be read in two ways; see the commentary.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Among Ehlî's poems this is the couplet that turns most openly from love to another subject, office and appointment. The construction rests on the words "doğru" and "uğru". Uğru means thief in old Turkish and by its sound also calls up "eğri", crooked; "doğru" means both an honest man and the opposite of crooked. The first line lays down a judgement: the highest offices are taken by the "düzd", the thief, and the honest man cannot get them. The second line turns the judgement into a bitter joke: we too would have taken an office, but there is none left that a thief has not laid hands on.

The syntax of the second line is obscure. "Olsa bir uğru almaz" can be read as "if there were an office the thief does not take", and it can also be understood as "had we been a thief we would have taken one"; in the second reading the poet would be saying that honesty itself kept him from office. Neither reading changes the couplet's complaint.

Hüsameddin gives this couplet among Ehlî's poems without further comment. When one remembers that the poet was sent to İçel for offending Ebussuûd Efendi and that the judgeship of Gelibolu was not given to him, it is reasonable that the couplet came from personal experience. This is nevertheless only a suggested connection; the source does not say on what occasion the couplet was spoken. For the Gelibolu affair see Kıt'a 1 in this category, and for the poet's life the article Ehlî (Tayyibzâde Mehmed Efendi).

Bibliography

Online sources