Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Cûyunun suyu âb-ı kevserdir
Hâk-i pâki abîr ü anberdir
Gel Sevâdiyye'sini seyr eyle
Kasr-ı asr içre gör ne manzardır
Merdüm-i ayn-ı âlem ü yâhud
Hâl-i ruhsâr-ı heft-kişverdir

In English

1. The water of its river is the water of Kawthar in Paradise; its pure soil is fragrant like ambergris and amber. (Abîr and anber were among the most precious perfumes of the old world.)

2. Come, gaze upon its Sevâdiye quarter; see what a fine view lies within the pavilion of the age. (According to the printing of the line in the sixth volume: "within the fragrant pavilion".)

3. Sevâdiye is either the pupil of the world's eye or the beauty mole on the cheek of the seven climes.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This three-couplet Turkish poem stands immediately after the preceding Persian passage, within the description of Amasya in Kemalpaşazâde's Tevârîh-i Âl-i Osmân (History of the Ottoman Dynasty); Hüsameddin gives the two one after the other under the headings "Nazm-ı Fârisî" (Persian verse) and "Nazm-ı Türkî" (Turkish verse). Both lines of the first couplet rhyme, and in the other couplets only the second lines follow this rhyme: the sound "-er" in the words "kevser, anber, manzar, kişver" forms the rhyme, and the suffix "-dir" serves as the redif (refrain word). This is the arrangement of a ghazal (gazel) opening with a matla; whether the passage was taken from a ghazal or written for the history is not known. The metre is not stated in the source; as transmitted, the lines do not fit a single aruz (quantitative metre) pattern cleanly, so no metre is given here. The text is taken from the third volume of the Amasya Tarihi (History of Amasya). In the Kemalpaşazâde entry of the sixth volume it is printed with small differences: "Cûyinin", "Sevâdiyesini", "Kasr-ı ‘ıtr" and "heft-i kişverdir". In the text Fatih Erkoçoğlu quotes from Hüsameddin, the second line of the second couplet reads "Kasr-ı ‘asr içre gör kim ne manzardur" and the first line of the third couplet "Merdüm-ı ayn-ı ‘âlem veyahud olmazsa"; this last addition is probably an error of transmission.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The first couplet continues in Turkish the paradise image of the Persian passage: the water of the river is that of Kawthar, the river of Paradise, and its soil smells of ambergris and amber. Water and soil, the two basic elements of a city, are matched with two blessings of Paradise. In the second couplet the poet calls to the reader directly and takes him to a particular quarter within Amasya, Sevâdiye. "Kasr-ı asr" means the pavilion of the age, the choicest building of the time; the reading "kasr-ı ‘ıtr" in the sixth volume means a fragrant pavilion and continues the scent imagery of the first couplet. Which of the two readings belongs to Kemalpaşazâde cannot be said without comparing the manuscripts.

The last couplet is the most skilfully built part of the poem. "Sevâd" means blackness in Arabic, and the name is also given to the gardens and orchards around a city. Drawing on this sense of "blackness" in the name of the quarter, the poet likens it to two black points: the pupil of the world's eye (merdüm-i ayn) and the beauty mole (hâl) on the cheek of the seven climes, that is, of the whole known world. In divan poetry both the pupil of the eye and the mole on the cheek are the most precious and most striking places of beauty. The name of the quarter thus carries at once a real place and an image declaring it the most precious of all; this is a way of speaking in which tevriye (double entendre) and tenasüp (congruence of images) are used together.

Historical Context

According to Hüsameddin, Kemalpaşazâde was born in 873 (1469) in the quarter of Amasya called Süveyda or Sevâdiye, and the historian takes the poet's naming of this quarter in particular, out of all Amasya, as evidence of this: "Had he been from Tokat, he could not have praised Amasya so warmly, nor shown such attachment to the Sevâdiye quarter in particular among the other quarters of Amasya." Relying on Amasya court deeds dated 875 and 878, Hüsameddin also writes that property was bought in the same quarter in the name of the "Vâlide Sultan" and that Kemalpaşazâde's father Süleyman Bey witnessed this proxy. Şerafettin Turan, however, reminds us that praising a city does not prove that one comes from it. The poem does not settle the question of the birthplace; but as a poem that names a quarter of Amasya and calls it the pupil of the world's eye, it holds a special place in the city's literary memory. The debate over Kemalpaşazâde's birthplace is set out in detail in the poet's biography.

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