Original Persian Text

Metre: Fe‘ûlün Fe‘ûlün Fe‘ûlün Fe‘ûl

نکویم که هم چشم مصراست و نیل
بهشت است ورودش در و سلسبیل
Negûyem ki hem-çeşm-i Mısr ast u Nîl
Bihişt ast u rûdeş der-û selsebîl
لب رودش ازهر طرف کشته زار
بر و چرخها چون قلك [فلك] بیقرار
Leb-i rûdeş ez her taraf kişte-zâr
Ber-û çarhhâ çün felek bî-karâr
ده و مزرعش هر طرف بی کران
کمین مرز بر کشت او مرز فان
Dih ü mezra‘aş her taraf bî-kerân
Kemîn merz ber kişt-i û Merzifân

In English

1. I will not say that Amasya is the equal of Egypt and the Nile; it is a paradise, and its river is the Salsabil spring within that paradise. (Salsabil is the name of one of the springs that flow in Paradise.)

2. The banks of its river are fields and gardens on every side; the water wheels upon the river never rest for a moment, like the turning heavens.

3. Its villages and fields are boundless on every side; even the smallest border of its cultivated lands is Merzifon, that is, a place as fertile as Merzifon counts only as the least of its fields.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

These six lines form a Persian poem set into the prose passage in which Kemalpaşazâde describes Amasya in his Tevârîh-i Âl-i Osmân (History of the Ottoman Dynasty). The two lines of each couplet rhyme with each other (Nîl-selsebîl, kişte-zâr-bî-karâr, bî-kerân-Merzifân); this is the mesnevi arrangement used in long narrative poems. The metre is the mütekârib pattern "fe‘ûlün fe‘ûlün fe‘ûlün fe‘ûl", widely used in Persian mesnevis since Firdawsi's Shahnameh; it is not stated in the source, and the identification is ours. Hüsameddin quotes the passage first in the third volume of his Amasya Tarihi (History of Amasya) and then in the Kemalpaşazâde entry of the sixth volume. Here the Arabic-script text is given from the more carefully set printing of the third volume. In the sixth volume "حشم" is printed instead of "çeşm" in the first line, "ورو" instead of "der-û" in the second, and the word "ber" has dropped out of the last line; in the third volume the word "felek" in the fourth line is set as "قلك", and its corrected form is shown in square brackets. The "ber" of the last line is required by the metre. The Latin-script reading is ours. Fatih Erkoçoğlu also read these couplets when quoting Hüsameddin's text, but gave the last line differently as "Kemîn merz ber-geşt o merz-bân"; the reading that names Merzifon agrees with Hüsameddin's own explanation.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

Hüsameddin gives the meaning of the passage in a footnote: "I cannot say that Amasya is the equal of Egypt and the Nile in splendour and adornment. Amasya is a paradise. Its river is the Salsabil of that paradise. Every side of its river is adorned with vineyards and gardens. The wheels upon it, turning ceaselessly, resemble the wheel of the heavens. In its surroundings there are so many villages and fields that its least district and township is the town of Merzifon, perfect and admired for its crops and adornment." The poet opens the first line with a deliberate step back: he refuses to compare Amasya with Egypt and the Nile, the greatest examples of abundance and civilisation in his age, because in his view the city stands above this comparison and can be measured only against paradise. Within this image the Yeşilırmak becomes the Salsabil spring of Paradise. In the second couplet the landscape becomes concrete: the gardens along the river and the water wheels that made Amasya known for centuries. The turning of the wheels is likened to "felek", the ever-revolving dome of the sky in the old astronomy; this simile between the turning wheel and the turning heavens builds a picture that speaks to both eye and ear. The last couplet carries the poem out to the plains and towns and names Merzifon as the measure of Amasya's fertility: even a rich town like Merzifon is the smallest part of this country's fields. This is a typical example of hyperbole (mübalağa).

Historical Context

According to Hüsameddin these lines stand in the seventh book of the Tevârîh-i Âl-i Osmân, where the sending of Prince Bayezid, son of Mehmed II (the Conqueror), to Amasya is narrated; the prose part says that Amasya is called "Harcene" in the old sources and praises it with the words "whoever enters it sorrowful leaves glad of heart". The historian counts this praise among the proofs that Kemalpaşazâde was a native of Amasya. Şerafettin Turan, in his edition of the seventh book, rejects this interpretation: praising a city does not prove that one comes from it, since Kemalpaşazâde also praised Edirne and Sinop, with which he had no family tie at all. The value of the poem is therefore independent of the birthplace debate: it is a rare poetic testimony in which a great scholar of the early sixteenth century describes Amasya as he saw it, with its river, its water wheels and its fertile plains.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Academic studies

  • Fatih Erkoçoğlu, "Hüseyin Hüsameddin'in Kemalpaşazâde'nin Amasyalı Olduğu İddiasını İspat Çabasına Tarihçilik Açısından Bakış", Uluslararası Amasya Âlimleri Sempozyumu Bildiriler Kitabı, II, Amasya 2017, pp. 413-423. https://isamveri.org/pdfdrg/G00226/2017/2017_ERKOCOGLUF.pdf

Online sources