Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fâ‘ilâtün Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilün

Ben demezdim ki sana dehr ide bîdâd görem
Dostlar gamda ola düşmenini şâd görem

In English

1. I never wished to see fate do you wrong; nor did I wish, while your friends are in grief, to see your enemy rejoicing. The couplet reads like a lament written after a friend's death: the poet says that what befell his friend, and his enemy's delight in it, have wounded him deeply.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This single couplet is a matla, the opening couplet of a ghazal (gazel), whose two lines rhyme with each other; but the rest of the ghazal was never written, and the couplet, spoken on the spur of the moment, remained as it was. The redif (refrain word) is "görem", and the rhyme is the sound "-âd" in the words "bîdâd" and "şâd". The metre is the remel pattern "fâ‘ilâtün fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilün" of aruz (quantitative metre); it is not stated in the source, and the identification is ours. The couplet appears in Âşık Çelebi's biographical anthology of poets (tezkire), the Meşâ‘irü'ş-şu‘arâ, within an incident Kemalpaşazâde relates in his own words. Hüsameddin quotes the incident from the copy of the anthology in the Nuruosmaniye Library (no. 3719, fol. 43); the text here is his quotation.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The strength of the couplet comes from its simplicity and from the sharp reply it carries within the incident. "Dehr" means time, fate; in divan poetry the misfortunes that befall a person are often laid upon fate. "Bîdâd" means oppression, injustice. The first line speaks of the injustice the dead friend suffered, the second of the two different states of those he left behind: his friends are in grief, his enemy rejoices. The contrast (tezat) between "gam" (grief) and "şâd" (glad) is the main figure on which the couplet rests. The poet does not name the enemy; but when one considers before whom he spoke the couplet, the person addressed in the second line is clear. As the sentence describing the moment it was spoken makes plain, this is a reproach as much as a lament.

Historical Context

Kemalpaşazâde himself recorded the incident in the Tevârîh-i Âl-i Osmân (History of the Ottoman Dynasty), where he narrates the life of Uğurluoğlu Ahmed, and Âşık Çelebi quoted it from there. Ahmed Mirza, grandson of the Akkoyunlu ruler Uzun Hasan, son of Uğurlu Mehmed and son-in-law of Bayezid II, the prince Hüsameddin also calls Göde Ahmed Bey, came to the throne in Iran in 902 (1496-97) and was killed there. When news of his death reached the Ottoman lands, Kemalpaşazâde went to the assembly of İbrâhim Paşa, son of Çandarlı Halil Paşa, who had long been at enmity with Ahmed. Though he knew of Kemalpaşazâde's attachment to Ahmed, the Paşa showed his pleasure at the death and asked mockingly: "Mirza's friends have composed elegies on his death and eaten helvas of patience with sugar and milk to drive away the pain of separation; have you said something too?" According to Kemalpaşazâde's account, this matla came to his mind at that moment, unbidden, and he recited it. Âşık Çelebi closes the incident thus: "Harîf müteessir olup şâdî iken nâlân oldu ve dediği söze ve yediği herzeye pişman oldu", that is, his opponent was moved, turned from rejoicing to lament, and regretted what he had said.

The incident's link with Amasya appears in Hüsameddin's notes. According to the historian, Ahmed Mirza grew up together with Kemalpaşazâde in Bayezid II's palace at Amasya, and their friendship dated from there; Ahmed Mirza had also been the cause of İbrâhim Paşa's dismissal from his post as vizier and lala (tutor-guardian) in Amasya. Hüsameddin writes that in 903 (1497-98) Kemalpaşazâde offended İbrâhim Paşa over a small incident and tells this matla as that incident. This information rests on Hüsameddin alone; the shared childhood in the Amasya palace is his explanation.

Bibliography

  • Abdîzâde Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar, Amasya Tarihi, vol. 6, Amasya: Amasya Belediyesi Kültür Yayınları, 2022, pp. 136-137 (e-book pp. 137-138; entry "Ahmed Şemseddîn Efendi-Kemâl Paşazâde", quotation from Âşık Çelebi and notes 33-34). https://amasya.bel.tr/uploads/e-kitap/kitap/6-8/files/basic-html/page137.html
  • Âşık Çelebi, Meşâ‘irü'ş-şu‘arâ, Nuruosmaniye Kütüphanesi no. 3719, fol. 43 (as quoted by Hüsameddin).

Online sources