Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilün

Ni’met-i Yezdânı gör kim âlemi olmuş muhît
Sâyesinde türlü mahlûklar büyür hayvân yaşar
Bir musallatdır bu dünyâ halkını idlâl için
Tâ be-mahşer olmayıp mel’ûn olur şeytân yaşar

In English

1. Behold the bounty of God, which encompasses the whole world; in its shade all kinds of creatures grow and the beast lives ("hayvân yaşar"). On the second reading: in its shade grows Yaşar the beast as well.

2. He is a plague set upon the people of this world to lead them astray; until the Day of Judgement he does not die and lives on, becoming the accursed devil ("şeytân yaşar"). On the second reading: Yaşar the accursed devil.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The piece is a kıt'a of two couplets bound by the same redif and rhyme; the name of the form does not appear in Hüsameddin, and the designation is ours. The second and fourth lines end with the phrases "hayvân yaşar" and "şeytân yaşar": the redif (refrain word) is "yaşar", and the rhyme is the sound "-ân" in the words "hayvân" and "şeytân". The metre fits the pattern "fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilün"; the identification is ours. Hüsameddin records the piece, noting that it was said "while Saraczâde Mehmed Yaşar Efendi, one of the notables of Amasya, was working in Merzifon as a tithe officer". The word "olmayıp" in the fourth line is left as in the source; in terms of sense the reading "ölmeyip" (not dying) fits better, and this may be a typesetting error.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The whole wit of the kıt'a lies in the word "yaşar" in the redif. On the one hand the word is the present tense of the verb "to live"; on the other it is the name of the person being satirised. Thus, in the first couplet, when it is said that under God's all-encompassing bounty "the beast lives" ("hayvân yaşar"), "Yaşar the beast" is said as well; in the second couplet the accursed devil who lives until the Day of Judgement is read as "Yaşar the devil". This analysis of the double entendre (tevriye) is ours, but since the person's name is given plainly in Hüsameddin's introduction, the reading is strong.

The devil image in the second couplet rests on the Qur'anic account: Iblis asked for respite until the Day of Resurrection in order to lead people astray, and this respite was granted to him. "İdlâl" means to lead astray; "musallat" is a person who has been made a plague upon others and will not leave them alone. By likening an officer who collected tithes from villagers and townsmen to a devil set upon people in the midst of God's bounty, the poet voices anger at the tax collector within a religious image. The air of praise in the first couplet is an ironic opening that prepares the ground for the invective of the second.

Historical Context

The tithe (öşür) was a tax of one tenth levied on agricultural produce, and in the nineteenth century it was often collected through tax farming (iltizam), that is, by the tax farmers who bought the right of collection and by their officers. The clashes of these officers with the people are a well-known problem of the period. Who Saraczâde Mehmed Yaşar Efendi was and in which years he worked in Merzifon are not stated in Hüsameddin's record; Hüsameddin calls him only "one of the notables of Amasya". The kıt'a illustrates the words of Hüsameddin, who says that Hilmî was "zemm ü medhe kâdir", equal to both invective and praise. For the poet's life see the article Dedezâde Mehmed Hilmî Efendi.

Bibliography

Online sources