Müdâmî, known as Kara Memi Çelebi, was a sixteenth-century poet who wrote a seven-stanza elegy on the killing of Şehzade Mustafa (Prince Mustafa) in 1553. His real name was Mehmed. The biographical anthologies of poets (tezkire) cite him with a single opening couplet (matla), but they tell his life in two different ways: according to one group he was a palace servant from the cavalry corps who died while trustee of the public treasury, according to the other he was a judge from Gelibolu. This page sets the two accounts side by side and treats the features of his elegy separately.

Müdâmî's connection with Amasya is made through Prince Mustafa, the subject of his elegy. The prince was sanjak governor (sanjak-bey) of Amasya from 1541 to 1553 and had gathered a wide circle of poets and scholars in the city. There is no record that Müdâmî was ever in Amasya or entered the prince's circle.

Life

According to Beyânî's anthology, Müdâmî's name was Mehmed and he was known as Kara Memi Çelebi. He was of the cavalry corps and among the servants in the palace service. Towards the end of his life he became trustee of the public treasury (beytülmal emini), and while he was seizing ownerless estates on behalf of the state treasury he himself died, and this time his own estate passed to the treasury. Beyânî records this bitter coincidence in a short sentence. Kınalızâde Hasan Çelebi gives the same information in a more ornate style: Müdâmî was noted among the cavalrymen for his understanding and knowledge, held the palace offices given to his peers, and died in Istanbul while trustee of the public treasury. Kınalızâde remarks that his verse was not "sûziş ü hâletden hâlî", that is, not lacking in ardour and feeling. Relying on Ahdî's Gülşen-i Şuarâ and on Beyânî, Recep Hasar reports that Müdâmî was from Istanbul, a soldier of the cavalry youths' company, who quickly attracted attention by the quality of his verse and took part in great gatherings.

Âşık Çelebi and Gelibolulu Mustafa Âlî, on the other hand, present Müdâmî as a judge. According to Âşık Çelebi, Müdâmî was Kara Memi Çelebi of Gelibolu and a relative of Yazıcızâde, author of the Muhammediye. He was trained in the path of learning, became a candidate (mülazım) under Molla Çelebi, son of the mufti Ali Çelebi, taught in Molla Çelebi's own madrasa and then went over to the judgeship. Âşık Çelebi describes him as delicate in nature and sweet of speech, both a man of learning and a convivial wit. Âlî likewise calls him "Kara Memi Çelebi of Gelibolu, of the judges", writes that he had a brother named Sarı Ali Çelebi, and that he never spent a single night without company. Âlî regards Âşık Çelebi's making him a relative of Yazıcızâde as a mistake, and says that the mistake arose because Müdâmî's house stood next to Yazıcızâde's tomb.

The State of the Sources

All four anthologies give Müdâmî the same opening couplet: "Kûh-ı gam çeşmesidür çeşm-i güher-pâş degül / Satr-ı târîhdür üstinde anun kaş degül" (It is the spring of the mountain of grief, not a pearl-scattering eye; what lies above it is a line of chronogram, not a brow). This shared couplet shows that the anthologists are speaking of the same poet. The divergence concerns profession and home town: Beyânî, Kınalızâde and Hasar, relying on Ahdî, describe him as a cavalryman from Istanbul and trustee of the treasury, whereas Âşık Çelebi and Âlî describe him as a judge from Gelibolu. How these two accounts are to be reconciled is not discussed in the sources we examined. The information about two different men named Kara Memi Çelebi may have become mixed, or the offices held by the same man at different times may have been reported differently.

Nor do the sources clearly show that the elegy belongs to this Müdâmî. Hasar uses the information about Müdâmî in the anthologies for the poet of the elegy and follows the cavalryman Müdâmî. The attitude of the elegy is a measured mourning that stresses that the prince obeyed the sultan and died a martyr; this is a feeling that could have come from the pen of a cavalryman in palace service or of a judge. The question of whose pen the poem came from therefore remains open; this assessment is our own.

His Poetry

Müdâmî's elegy for Prince Mustafa is a poem of seven stanzas in the metre "fâ’ilâtün fâ’ilâtün fâ’ilâtün fa’ilün". Its heading calls it a "muaşşer", and each stanza has ten lines, but the last two lines, the couplet "Eyledi şâha itâ‘at kıldı baş ü cân fedâ / Şâh-ı iklîm-i şehâdet ya‘ni Sultân Mustafâ", are repeated unchanged in every stanza. Hasar therefore notes that the poem is in fact a terci-i bend. Part of the elegy appears in Mehmed Çavuşoğlu's article of 1981-1982 and the rest in Ayhan Güldaş's publication of 1989.

The poet draws the prince as a martyr who was not attached to the world, did not lean on the throne of sovereignty and died obeying his father. He likens him in beauty to Joseph and in his sufferings to Job; he calls all creation, and above all the prince's mother, to mourning, and names him "the one who came before all the princes", worthy to be king of the world. Semra Güler notes that the poem does not go beyond expressing the poet's feelings. The original text of the elegy, its English prose rendering and a commentary are published as a separate article in this category. The opening couplet in the anthologies has been left outside the scope of this work, as it has no connection with Amasya or Prince Mustafa. The other elegies are described in our article Elegies for Prince Mustafa, and the prince's life in the biography Şehzade Mustafa.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Beyânî Mustafa, Tezkiretü'ş-şu'arâ, ed. Aysun Sungurhan, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı, 2017 (e-book), p. 183, entry "Müdâmî". https://ekitap.ktb.gov.tr/Eklenti/55835,beyani-tezkiresipdf.pdf
  • Kınalızâde Hasan Çelebi, Tezkiretü'ş-şu'arâ, ed. Aysun Sungurhan, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı, 2017 (e-book), pp. 768-769, entry "Müdâmî". https://ekitap.ktb.gov.tr/Eklenti/55834,kinalizade-hasan-celebipdf.pdf
  • Âşık Çelebi, Meşâirü'ş-şuarâ, ed. Filiz Kılıç, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı, 2018 (e-book), p. 340, entry "Müdâmî". ekitap.ktb.gov.tr
  • Gelibolulu Mustafa Âlî, Künhü'l-Ahbâr'ın Tezkire Kısmı, ed. Mustafa İsen, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı (e-book), p. 208, entry "Müdâmî".

Academic studies

Books

  • Süleyman Solmaz, Ahdî ve Gülşen-i Şu'arâsı, Ankara: Atatürk Kültür Merkezi, 2005, p. 522 (as quoted in Hasar).