The Story of Joseph: A Fourteenth-Century Turkish Morality Play by Sheyyad Hamza

Preface

xv Preface The Joseph story is one of the most frequently retold tales in world literature. Whether in its archetypal form in the Book of Genesis or its privileged position as a unique complete narrative in sura xii of the Muslim Qur’an, the story gained immense popularity among followers of all three Middle Eastern monotheistic religions. There are hundreds of reformulations of the story based on those two canonical texts. Wherever Jews, Christians, or Muslims went, they took the Joseph story with them and told it again and again.1 If modern readers are unfamiliar with the story in either of its sacred book settings, they may well have encountered it—however much transformed—in any of a number of readily accessible, secular reformulations: modern novel, stage play, Broadway musical. It is the story of the despised favorite son who survives the murderous envy of his older brothers. Sold into slavery, he escapes the seductive clutches of his new master’s wife and rises to fame and fortune. It is a story with extraordinarily “good legs.” But if it is so well-known, why, one may reasonably ask, should we have yet another retelling of it? xvi ✹ Preface Especially favored for a thousand years by Muslim Turks, from Central Asia to the Balkans, only one of those reformulations has been translated in full and published in English, a volume not readily accessible to the general reader today. Sheyyad Hamza’s “Story of Joseph” [Destan-i Yusuf ], presented here in annotated translation, is a singular cultural document that mimics a particular form of oral storytelling of which nothing else survives. Hamza’s poem, a retelling of the story influenced by generations of commentators, embodies and reflects attitudes and beliefs held in fourteenth-century Anatolia in the early years of post-Seljuk, pre-Ottoman rule, and presents its dramatic subject in a different light from that of other reformulations . Hamza’s poem is a highly engaging reframing of that ancient story that begs to be told again. The heart of this book is my translation of Hamza’s poem, presented in the form of a stage play, for reasons that are explained in the introduction. Line numbers have been added in the margins, keyed to two recent editions of the Turkish text. There are two reasons for this. It facilitates cross-referencing of points discussed in the introduction. Further, readers with adequate language ability may readily access (in those books) transcriptions of the Old Anatolian Turkish text as well as a modern Turkish rendering and facsimile of the manuscript text. Notes to the translation are intended to elucidate possibly obscure passages, provide reference for quotations, and, less frequently , point readers to further reading. Works of premodern Turkish literature and the world that they illuminate are relatively unknown outside Turkey. Furthermore , Hamza’s poem remains virtually unstudied. Therefore I Preface ✹ xvii have provided abundant supporting material in the form of a four-part introduction and an afterword. The first part of the introduction (“The Story”) provides a brief overview of the historical development of the Joseph story up through Hamza’s time. “The Poet” (part two) introduces Hamza himself, what little we know of him. In the third part (“Hamza’s Story of Joseph”) I look closely at two extended passages from the text to help the reader better understand Hamza ’s technique and approach to the story, and offer an overall assessment of the poem. In the final part of the introduction (“The Translation”), I explain my approach to the English version of Hamza’s poem. Readers with little previous experience of Muslim culture or medieval Turkish history should be able to enjoy the story with that introduction. Those who wish for broader background to Hamza’s poem will find that in the afterword. It offers answers, I hope, to a variety of questions that a curious reader might ask regarding linguistic, historic, and cultural issues. Notes to both introduction and afterword refer readers to a wide variety of English language sources for further exploration . They suggest the breadth of writing on matters relating to the Joseph story. Finally, I provide a synopsis of the entire poem, a list of motifs and incidents identified by line number, to provide access for anyone wishing to compare, at a glance, Hamza’s treatment of the story with any other, or simply to quickly find a scene since there are no such...