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Monday, September 8, 2014

from the 'Safahat', de Mehmet Âkif Ersoy


A Lesson from Experience

That men would draw lessons from the past... what a fairy tale!
Did the tale of five thousand years give half a lesson?
History is defined as recurrence;
If it recurs, what lesson has been drawn from it?



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da versão mini do Safahat, uma tradução tão má que a compreensão é quase impossível, um projecto de divulgação da literatura e cultura turcas pelo ministério correspondente. o original.

Ersoy, o autor da letra do hino turco, um acérrimo defensor da república e do islamismo - hoje, contraditoriamente.  dos cinquenta versos, apenas os primeiros dez servem de hino actualmente, a marcha da independência.

Fear not, the crimson banner that proudly ripples in this glorious dawn, shall not fade,
Before the last fiery hearth that is ablaze within my homeland is extinguished.
For that is the star of my people, and it will forever shine;
It is mine; and solely belongs to my valiant nation.
Frown not, I beseech you, oh thou coy crescent,
Smile upon my heroic nation!1 Why the anger, why the rage?2
Our blood which we shed for you might not be worthy otherwise;
For freedom is the absolute right of my God-worshipping nation.3
I have been free since the beginning and forever shall be so.
What madman shall put me in chains! I defy the very idea!
I'm like the roaring flood; trampling and overflowing my stream bed,
I'll tear apart the mountains, fill up the expanses4 and still gush out!
The horizons of the West may be surrounded with walls of steel,
But my borders are guarded by the mighty bosom of a believer.
Let it howl5 , do not be afraid! And think: how can this fiery faith ever be killed,
By that battered, single-fanged monster you call "civilization"?6
My friend! Leave not my homeland to the hands of villainous men!
Render your chest as armour and your body a bulwark! Halt this disgraceful assault!
For soon shall come the joyous days of divine promise...
Who knows? Perhaps tomorrow? Perhaps even sooner!
View not the soil you tread on as mere earth - recognize it!
And think about the shroudless7 thousands who lie so nobly beneath you.
You're the noble son of a martyr, take shame, grieve not your ancestors!
Unhand not, even when you're promised all the worlds, this paradise of a homeland.
Who would not die for this heavenly piece of land?
Martyrs would gush out should one simply squeeze the soil! Martyrs!
May God take my life, all my loved ones and possessions from me if He will,
But let Him not deprive me of my one true homeland in the world.
Oh glorious God, the sole wish of my pain-stricken heart is that,
No heathen's hand should ever touch the bosom of my sacred Temples.
These adhans, whose shahadahs are the foundations of my religion
May their noble sound last loud and wide over my eternal homeland.
For only then, shall my fatigued tombstone, if there is one, prostrate8 a thousand times in ecstasy,
And tears of fiery blood shall flow out of my every wound,
And my lifeless body shall gush out from the earth like an eternal spirit,
Perhaps only then, shall I peacefully ascend and at long last reach the heavens.
So ripple and wave like the bright dawning sky, oh thou glorious crescent,
So that our every last drop of blood may finally be blessed and worthy!
Neither you nor my kin1 shall ever be extinguished!
For freedom is the absolute right of my ever-free flag;
For independence is the absolute right of my God-worshipping nation!

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