Bamsi Beyrek and Irony

As you all may know, the basis of the The Story of Bamsi Beyrek is that Bamsi is taken hostage during his wedding night by infidels.  Everyone believes Bamsi because Yaltajuk, who wants Bamsi out of the picture so he can marry Banu Chichek, dips a Bamsi's shirt he left behind in blood.  While imprisoned by the infidels, it is revealed that the daughter of the King of the infidels is in love with Bamsi.  His only way out of imprisonment is to promise to marry the infidel king's daughter if he gets away in sixteen years.  He does get back home during that time, where he is eventually reunites with Chichek.  However, he does not marry her right away; he actually goes back to marry the infidel king's daughter and then comes back to marry Chichek.

The irony to the ending of this is that Bamsi was an Oghuz Turk. The Book of Dede Korkut is known for stories that represent pre-islamic and Turkish beliefs.  The Oghuz Turks were monogamous, meaning that they marry only one person.  It was the religion of Islam that supported polygamy, which is where people have multiple spouses.  The irony behind the story of Bamsi Beyrek is that it is the ONLY story in The Book of Dede Korkut that has polygamy.

Do you think that the polygamy part of the story was put in there on purpose?  Why do you think they made Bamsi's marriage polygamous when the Turks believed in monogamy?

And yes, don't mind this picture of Bamsi looking seductive.

A Lie of Omission

Bamsi Beyrek’s story is both interesting and really crazy. Several times throughout the story, Bamsi proves himself to be relatively observant but does not say anything about his observations – he keeps his head down and his mouth shut. In exchange for saving some merchants, he asks for the horse, club, and bow that they are supposed to bring back to his father as gifts for him. While they are willing to do so, if unhappy about it, Bamsi allows them to bring the items to him so that they will not get in trouble for losing them and so that his father can give them to him. Instead of claiming what they technically owe him and earning his name now that he has killed men, he allows himself to remain nameless instead of shaming the merchants.

               Bamsi also later conceals his encounter from his father when asked what kind of woman he wishes to marry. Rather than say that he met his betrothed in the woods or use her name when describing her, he allows his father to interpret his description into Banu Chichek. While marrying her certainly has its own repercussions (her brother’s overprotectiveness, specifically), I am focusing more specifically on the potential repercussions of Bamsi’s manipulation of his father. Are Bamsi’s omissions to his father more likely to have beneficial or damaging consequences, and why?

Poor Margery

It is tempting to put Margery Kempe down as a simple nutcase, but there’s a danger in that assessment—because it unintentionally leads to dismissing and trivializing her life story as one of outrageous delusion, and therefore false. Regardless of the source of Kempe’s behavior—madness, psychosis, depression, divine torment—be it psychiatric or spiritual, she lived it real and she lived it hard.

Sparing neither herself nor the people around her, she drove herself to the utmost extremes of human tolerance. Just consider how far that drive took her: personally, in building (and sometimes losing) her businesses and successfully (if painfully) deconstructing her marriage; religiously, in her unsparing drive to win her place as a Christian holy woman; physically, for she was truly pitiless toward her own comforts (and when the weeping came upon her, that was literally draining as well!); even geographically, given how difficult travel just to France could be in that time—much less a journey to Jerusalem—and the fact that she undertook that journey essentially alone, as an unpleasant, unaccommodating, often embarrassing companion shunned by her fellow travelers. The diagnosis of madness, even if true, doesn't leave much room to acknowledge the gritty, desperate richness and sacrifice of her hard-fought life. 

As for the fascinating discussion on witchcraft (11/5) on the blog: If Margery had been born a century later, she might have been lucky that her madness (if indeed that's what religious intoxication is, as many would assuredly disagree) took the form it did, because her fixation on Christ instead of some other focus might have made it riskier for people to challenge her, having no way to know whether she was genuine or not. (Margery herself seems to worry about her legitimacy at one point, which takes her to visit Julian of Norwich, another and far more respected and accepted Christian mystic.)

But in the 14th century, my understanding is that most of the witch paranoia was focused on men, not women—warlocks, not witches. Women don't come under dark suspicion until the late 15th century, when things start to get really ugly for them; by the 16th century (17th in America), the “pogrom” is in full swing. (I await correction on my witch chronology, if someone knows it in better detail…)

Now, what post is complete without a soundtrack? Back in the day, I used to perform with some friends, and one of the tunes we played was about a witch, Susannah Martin. The words are taken from a newspaper account of her trial...

Wow, Your Room is So Rumi.

After reading the selected poems by Rumi, I decided to dig deeper for myself. I have always considered myself to be a spiritual person (from my 10 years as a devout Christian to my current agnosticism) and I felt drawn to his proverbs. After reading further, I decided to go out into the woods and meditate for a while because I had felt rather strange for the past few weeks. Once I got into the woods, I pulled up some Rumi on my phone, sat there, and  began to meditate. The interesting thing was I began to feel very centered, once I was able to block out all the noise in my head. I began to think about all the existential issues that cross my mind on a daily basis, but instead of it being a burden, it was more like watching a movie in my mind (I swear on my life that I was completely sober while I did this. 😅) After a while, I got cold because I was sitting in the snow and decided to leave. However, the experience left a lasting feeling in my chest and it was one I was very familiar with.

So now for the non-empirical part. The feeling I felt in my chest was the same feeling I felt when I would speak to Jesus back in the day. It feels like comfort and the absence of loneliness. It feels like you can lean back and there will be something/someone there to hold you up. I guess it feels like you're being held and the weight of the world isn't on your shoulders for a little bit. As nice as that is, it led me to think even deeper (wow who would have thought..). If I can feel this feeling while both praying or meditating, what does that mean for the validity of both religious views? The logic behind that question is this. If one is genuinely legit and the other is not, why do I feel that spiritual connection in both cases? I'm not trying to start a belief war, but I am trying to provoke thought.

So my questions are this.

1. What do you think about Rumi?
2. What are your feelings on meditation.
3. Do you subscribe to a more universal mystic or do you think only one religion has it right

(these are heavy questions so, if you feel uncomfortable answering one, feel free to skip it 🌝)

P.S - Check out this picture of Rumi. Can you tell what's wrong with it? If you can...ummmmm.....you get a cookie.