Notes on the Relationship of the Çarh-name with the Text of an Ode of Advice
Orhan KılıçarslanTo date, only one copy of the first Turkish work written in Anatolia and its poet/ author, Ahmed Fakih, and his ode Çarh-name have been found. This copy of the qasida, which is found in Eğridirli Hacı Kemâl’s collection of verses called Camiü’n-nezair and is missing 17 couplets, including the pseudonym couplet, was completed with couplets found in a collection. Although research on the existence of another complete copy of the Çarh-name has not yet yielded any results, the connexion of a recently published ode of advice with the Çarh-name and an ode that we think was written as a nazira to it has been noticed. It was found that this ode of 125 couplets by a poet using the pseudonym Yahya has 48 couplets belonging to the Çarh-name and 74 couplets belonging to the 106 couplets of an ode written by a poet with the pseudonym Sa‘di as a nursery rhyme to Çarh-name. When these three texts are examined, it is seen that some of the couplets have differences that can be considered as copy differences, while some of them are recorded in the same way. In the introductory part of the study, the data provided by the ode of advice, which is one of the texts in a story collection of which two copies were identified in a different study, for Çarh-name and Sa‘di’s verse are evaluated comparatively. In this study, in which language and spelling issues as well as copy characteristics are discussed and analysed, an effort has been made to show the relations between the texts, and this qasida has been used to complete the poems.
Çarh-nâme’nin Bir Nasihat Kasidesi Metni ile İlişkisi Üzerine Notlar
Orhan KılıçarslanAnadolu’da yazılmış ilk Türkçe eser ve bu eserin şairi/müellifi meselelerine ilişkin adı ön sıralarda anılan Ahmed Fakîh ve onun Çarh-nâme adlı kasidesinin bugüne kadar tek nüshası ele geçmiştir. Kasidenin, Eğridirli Hacı Kemâl’in Câmi‘ü’n-nezâ’ir adını verdiği nazire mecmuasında bulunan ve mahlas beyti de dâhil olmak üzere sondan 17 beyti eksik olan bu nüshası, bir mecmuada bulunan beyitler ile tamamlanmıştır. Çarh-nâme’nin başka tam bir nüshasının varlığına ilişkin yapılan araştırmalarda henüz bir sonuca ulaşılamamışsa da bir süre önce yayımlanan bir nasihatname kasidesinin Çarh-nâme ve ona nazire olarak yazıldığını düşündüğümüz bir kaside ile olan irtibatı fark edilmiştir. Yahyâ ismi/mahlasını kullanan bir şaire ait 125 beyitlik bu kasidede Çarhnâme’ye ait 48, Sa‘dî mahlaslı bir şair tarafından Çarh-nâme’ye nazire olarak yazılmış 106 beyitlik kasideye ait ise 74 beytin bulunduğu tespit edilmiştir. Bu üç metin incelendiğinde beyitlerin bir kısmının nüsha farkı sayılabilecek farklar barındırdığı, bir kısmının ise aynı şekilde kaydedildiği görülmektedir. Çalışmanın giriş kısmında, iki nüshası farklı bir araştırmada tespit edilen bir hikâye mecmuasının içindeki metinlerden biri olan nasihat kasidesinin Çarh-nâme ve Sa‘dî’nin manzumesi için sunduğu veriler karşılaştırmalı olarak değerlendirilmiştir. Nüsha özellikleri yanında dil ve imlaya ait hususların da ele alınıp incelendiği bu çalışmada metinler arasındaki ilgilerin gösterilmesine gayret edilmiş, bu kasideden manzumelerin ikmâl edilmesi, tamamlanması konusunda faydalanılmıştır.
Dated to the mid-14th century or later, the only known and incomplete copy of Çarh-name is in the Camiü’n-nezair copy registered in Bayezid State Library, no. 5782. The 17 couplets missing from the end of the work in the Bayezid copy were completed with the couplets found in the incomplete leaves in a manuscript registered in Edirne Selimiye Manuscript Library, number 22 Sel 2309. On the other hand, it has been determined that the text of a recently published nasihatname bears a great deal of similarities with the Çarh-name and the nazir poem written to it. The related qasida can be found between 112a-119b of the first copy and 60a-64a of the second copy. The text of 125 couplets recorded under the title “Fi Beyani Kaside-i Nasihat” in this story collection is, at first glance, an ode in the ode of advice genre belonging to a poet using the name “Yahya”. When the text of the ode is analysed, we come across a “compilation” text, some of the couplets of which are taken from Çarh-name and some of which are taken from a poem written by a poet with the pseudonym Sa‘di to Çarhname. According to the comparison made, there are 48 couplets belonging to Çarh-name in the ode of advice consisting of 125 couplets, and 74 couplets belonging to a poem written by a poet with the pseudonym Sa‘di to Çarh-name. A comparison of the three texts reveals that Yahya’s qasida may have been separate copies of both Çarh-name and Sa‘di’s verse, which was written as a verse in verse to Çarh-name. In the introduction part of the study, evaluations were made in this situation.
Yahya’s verse and both Çarh-name and Sa‘di’s qasida are compatible in terms of formal elements. All three texts that do not contain all parts of a qasida in the classical sense are written in a similar number of couplets. In the texts, which are introduced with advice, there is a prayer part in addition to the maksud part, and the verses are completed with couplets mentioning the pseudonym. In the verses written by Sa‘di as a verse in verse to the ode of advice and Çarh-name, one or two more couplets were sung after the pseudonym couplet and the odes were completed. In Çarh-name, on the other hand, the number of couplets after the pseudonym reaches up to six. This situation shows that Yahya, the poet of the ode of advice, followed Sa‘di’s verse. The high number of common couplets in Sa‘di’s ode of advice supports this situation.
Because the text of nasihatname does not contain all the couplets of Çarh-name, it is not possible to make a complete comparison. On the other hand, the presence of nearly half the number of couplets of Çarh-name in this ode provides relatively sufficient data in terms of showing the relationship between the texts. Between ode of advice and Çarh-name, there are more examples where only word choices stand out and differentiate, but not on the scale of verse and couplet. These examples show that the poet Yahya did not intervene much in the words that form the rhyme of the couplet, but made changes in other parts of the couplet. Many couplets taken from Çarh-name appear in the same way in the ode of advice without any difference. When these couplets are compared, it is seen that Yahya transferred the couplets from Çarh-name to his own qasida sequential.
The ode of advice is a text that provides auxiliary data for this verse, which Sa’di wrote as a verse in verse to Çarh-name and of which no other copy is known. The preferences that emerge as copy differences with Çarh-name are also found in Sa‘di’s verse. The number of couplets with differences in this verse is higher than taht in the Çarh-name. Because the number of quoted couplets is higher in Sa‘di’s verse, the same number of couplets is also higher than in the Çarh-name. The differences between Sa‘di’s verse and Yahya’s qasida are striking, especially in the rhyming words. As mentioned in the introduction, both Çarh-name and Sa‘di’s poem have missing/omitted verses. Yahya’s ode of advice provides complementary data for the solution of this problem. In fact, the duplicated couplet in the Çarh-name is included in the text of the ode of advice among the 48 couplets taken from the Çarh-name. Based on these data, it was possible to correctly complete the verse that was written twice in Çarh-name and left the couplet incomplete in terms of context. Another example of this problem, which is written twice in the Çarh-name, appears as an unwritten line in Sa‘di’s verse of 106 couplets. The ode of advice also provides data for the completion of this text.
In this study, both Çarh-name and the verse written to this ode by a poet with the pseudonym Sa‘di and Yahya’s qasida are evaluated in terms of commonalities and other connexions. Indications of the commonalities between the texts are presented, and the text of the ode of advice, which is thought to have been compiled/written at a later time and from a different copy, is utilised to complete the deficiencies of the verses. For a duplicated verse in Çarhname and an unwritten verse in Sa‘di’s verse, the entries in the text of Yahya’s ode of advice are presented as suggestions. Until another copy of Camiü’n-nezair or Çarh-name appears, it seems appropriated to complete the verses in this way, given the commonalities in Yahya’s verse. The fact that the texts containing the ode of advice are found in religious story collections is important both for the environment in which these texts continued to be read and for the implications they may have for the early written texts of Turkish.
