Harname (Book)

Harnâme is a short mesnevi composed of 126 couplets by Şeyhî, a 15th-century poet, and is regarded as the first fable in Turkish literature. Written in the genres of allegory and satire, the work expresses the poet’s personal grievance while drawing attention to the social injustices of his time. The text was prepared for publication in Ottoman Turkish by Mehmet Özdemir and published by Kapı Yayınları.

Harnâme is an allegorical mesnevi aimed at social critique. Through animal characters, it satirically exposes the flaws, class distinctions, injustices, and oppression of the powerful over the weak in the social structure of the era. Şeyhî adopted an indirect method of criticism by attributing thoughts that people could not voice directly to animals. Through the central character of the donkey, the poet symbolically and ironically reflects his own suffering and the injustices within society. In this regard, Harnâme represents the transition between humor and satire and is recognized as one of the earliest examples of social critique in Turkish literature in the fable form.

According to the most widely accepted view, Şeyhî wrote the work after being attacked, robbed, and beaten by the former owners of the village of Tokuzlar, which had been granted to him as a timar following his successful treatment of Çelebi Mehmed’s eye. He composed the piece to convey this injustice to the sultan in a witty manner. Another view holds that Şeyhî composed this satire after failing to receive the expected reward for presenting his mesnevi Hüsrev ü Şîrîn to Sultan Murad II. In this sense, Harnâme is a literary text that combines a personal claim for justice with a broader social critique of authority. The subject of Şeyhî’s Harnâme is an allegorical narrative centered on a donkey, burdened and weakened by heavy labor, who becomes obsessed with obtaining horns like the fat, comfortable oxen and, because of this desire, loses his ears and tail.

The story begins with the pitiful condition of a donkey forced to carry firewood and water nonstop, so worn down by the labor that he appears like a walking skeleton; when the load is removed from his back, he is compared to dog dung. One day, his owner, moved by pity, lets him rest in a pasture. There, the donkey sees oxen, their horns like crowns, wandering contentedly, fat and healthy, and is struck with astonishment. He begins to compare his own miserable state with their comfortable lives.

Believing that he and the oxen were created similarly, the donkey questions why he is poor and hornless. This questioning forms an allegorical foundation for criticizing the social injustices and status disparities of the era. To resolve this troubling question, the donkey decides to consult an old, wise, and experienced donkey, revered as the leader of his kind. The old donkey warns him that the oxen have earned their status because they cultivate wheat and provide sustenance to humans, whereas donkeys are assigned the lowly task of carrying firewood, and that in truth, even their ears and tails are more than they deserve. However, the ambitious donkey ignores this advice and dreams of cultivating wheat like the oxen to gain their respect, rather than enduring the burden of carrying wood and beatings.

The donkey enters a lush green field, believing he has found a solution to his suffering, and greedily devours the crops, chewing and trampling them until the entire field is reduced to a barren wasteland. Satisfied and joyful, he rolls about and begins to bray loudly with his ugly voice. The sound reaches the field’s owner, who, enraged by the destruction, beats the donkey. When his anger does not subside, he draws his knife and cuts off the donkey’s ears and tail. The wounded donkey flees with great difficulty and encounters the old donkey again, summarizing his fate with the lines: “Bâtıl isteyü haktan ayrıldım, Boynuz umdum kulaktan ayrıldım” (I sought the false and abandoned the true; I desired horns and lost my ears).

This final couplet underscores the core message of the work: one must be content with what one has, for excessive ambition leads to disaster. At the end of the work, Şeyhî identifies himself with this donkey, using humor and allegory to present his personal misfortune and the social injustices of his time to the sultan, while calling for justice. The work delivers social critique through individual suffering, highlighting the consequences of greed and defiance of fate, the brutality of those in power, and the difficulty of changing one’s social status.

Harnâme is not merely a narrative of a personal incident but a multilayered text drawing from diverse literary and cultural sources. Its subject and plot are believed to be based on the Arabic proverb “to lose one’s ears while seeking horns.” Additionally, the donkey tale in Emîr Hüseynî’s Zâdü’l-Müsâfirîn, the animal fables in Kelîle ve Dimne, allegorical stories from Hebrew tradition, and similar variants in Aesop’s fables are cited as sources of inspiration for Harnâme. Furthermore, thematic structures in Firdawsi’s Şehnâme and Fahrî’s Hüsrev ü Şîrîn mesnevi are thought to have influenced Şeyhî’s narrative. This multifaceted interaction demonstrates the work’s connection to both Eastern and Western storytelling traditions.

Harnâme is a short mesnevi written in the 15th century in the genres of allegory, fable, and satire within the framework of Divan literature. Comprising approximately 126 couplets, it is composed in the aruz meter “feilâtün mefâilün feilün.” Despite its small size, it contains the standard sections found in classical mesneviler: tevhid, naat, praise of the sultan, reason for composition, the main story, and a prayer. Thus, it is a cohesive and complete example of a mesnevi in both content and form:

• Tevhid: The introductory section expounding the oneness of God,
• Naat: The section praising the Prophet Muhammad,
• Praise of the Sultan (Methiye): The section containing compliments addressed to the sultan to whom the work is dedicated,
• Sebeb-i Telif: The section explaining the reason for writing the work,
• Main Story: The section containing the allegorical tale of the donkey,
• Dua: The concluding section offering prayers and good wishes.

Moreover, as the first known fable in Turkish literature, Harnâme possesses a unique and innovative structure. It presents a multilayered narrative combining humor, satire, and didactic instruction. Harnâme is one of the rare examples in which the forms of fable, mesnevi, and satire intersect both in structure and content.

Harnâme uses its allegorical structure to portray social roles, class differences, and individual weaknesses through symbolic characters. The donkey, the protagonist, represents both the poet Şeyhî and the common people, symbolizing the hardworking yet undervalued lower strata of society. The oxen represent the powerful, comfortable, status-possessing, yet often ignorant rulers or elite class, while the old donkey embodies the wise figure who upholds traditional knowledge and contentment. The field owner serves as the allegorical counterpart of the sultan or authority figure. This system of representation through animals strengthens the work’s implicit messages and elevates its social critique to a more universal plane. This structure enables Şeyhî to express criticisms that could not be voiced directly to human audiences.

Harnâme addresses social, moral, and philosophical themes through the lens of individual suffering. The most prominent themes in the work are:

• Social Justice and Inequality: Social inequality is critiqued through the questioning of why beings created similarly live under vastly different conditions.
• Ambition and Dissatisfaction: The donkey’s desire to become horned and fat like the oxen, and his subsequent suffering, delivers a didactic message: “To lose one’s ears while seeking horns.”
• Acceptance of Fate: The work emphasizes that individuals should live according to their nature, and that rebellion against fate leads to harm.
• Moral Instruction: The text is didactic from beginning to end, guiding the reader to reflect, learn lessons, and cultivate contentment.
• Human Weaknesses: Human emotions such as envy, jealousy, and insatiability are satirized through the animal characters.

Harnâme employs humor not merely for amusement but as a tool for reflection and critique. Şeyhî preferred indirect humor—wit and cleverness—avoiding direct criticism and instead ridiculing societal flaws through animal characters. The humor is grounded in contrasts and absurd situations, such as the donkey comparing his own frailty to the robust oxen. This structure aligns with the modern humor theory known as incongruity theory, which holds that humor arises from the violation of expectations and the breaking of conventional logic.

Elements such as the donkey being too weak to carry a fly yet aspiring to be like an ox, or reveling in loud braying after destroying a field, are both comical and critical. In this sense, Harnâme stands as one of the most important examples not only of early Turkish humor but also of universal humor.

Harnâme was composed in 15th-century Ottoman Turkish and stands out for its simple, fluent, and accessible language. Although Şeyhî was proficient in Arabic and Persian, he predominantly used Turkish in the work, especially adopting the sehl-i mümteni style—apparently simple but rich in meaning—in the narrative section. Stylistically, the language is humorous, subtly ironic, and symbolic. Indirect and implicit expression is preferred over direct criticism. This feature enhances the literary quality of the work and enabled the poet to protect himself within the political climate of the time. The work employs various narrative techniques:

• Dialogue and internal monologue reveal the characters’ inner worlds,
• Vivid imagery presents characters both physically and psychologically,
• Summary, flashbacks, and dramatic structure allow for a profound narrative despite its brevity.

Additionally, classical literary devices such as simile (teşbih), personification (teşhis), anthropomorphism (intak), hyperbole (mübalağa), and allusion (telmih) are employed throughout the text.

Harnâme has been regarded since the 15th century as a pioneer in the genres of satire and fable in Turkish literature. It is a significant work in Turkish literary history both as one of the earliest examples of Turkish humor and for preserving the linguistic features of its era. According to Faruk Kadri Timurtaş, “In the valley of satire and humor, where even powerful artists like Nef’î were powerless, Harnâme remained the greatest monument in this field for four and a half centuries until Ziya Paşa’s Zafernâme was written.”^【1】 The universal themes addressed in the work—social justice, ambition, contentment, and class differences—have retained their relevance over time, ensuring its continued reading, analysis, and evaluation across different eras.

In the 16th century, Hüsâm-ı Sahrâvî’s another Har-nâme demonstrates that the influence of Harnâme extended beyond literary circles into folk narratives and anecdotal traditions. Moreover, modern studies have revealed that Harnâme possesses sufficient depth to be analyzed using narrative and novel-criticism techniques. Additionally, Harnâme has been examined comparatively alongside other Turkish satirical and humorous works. It has left a lasting mark on Turkish literature through its literary content and intergeneric interactions, generating enduring resonance.

Harnâme is also a text that draws attention within the framework of comparative literature. Its themes and structure share commonalities with fables, parables, and animal tales from other cultures, demonstrating its universality. The donkey’s tale bears resemblance to Arabic darbımeseller, Aesop’s fables, Kelîle ve Dimne, Hebrew stories, and certain Persian mesnevi examples.

Like Fuzûlî’s Şikâyetnâme, it initiates social critique from the standpoint of individual grievance. While Nef’î’s Sihâm-ı Kazâ represents a more direct and harsh form of satire, Harnâme chooses an indirect and allegorical path. These comparisons illustrate both the evolution of satirical approaches across periods and the unique humorous style represented by Harnâme. The work offers a rich field of study in comparative literature, particularly in terms of universal themes, symbolic narrative, and the use of humor.