Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün

Râsttır reftârımız mânend-i mîl-i tûtiyâ
Biz hezâran dîde-i mahmûra girmiş çıkmışız

In English

1. Our bearing is as straight as the kohl stick; we have gone in and out of a thousand languid eyes. (The kohl stick is the thin rod used to apply kohl to the eyes; it goes into the eye and comes out, yet it is straight and does the eye no harm. The phrase "going in and out of a thousand eyes" is understood as a reply to the gossip directed at the poet.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This couplet is given in modern script in Mustafa İsmet Uzun's entry on Hubbî Hatun in the TDV Encyclopaedia of Islam. According to the entry, various rumours arose about Hubbî because she attracted attention through her closeness to the sultan and her beauty, and she uttered this couplet against that gossip. The entry does not state from which anthology or collection the couplet is taken; it is not found in the entries on Hubbî in Âşık Çelebi, Kınalızâde or Gelibolulu Âlî. The text is therefore given here exactly as spelled in the encyclopaedia. The metre is from the remel family of aruz (quantitative metre), "fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün". Since its two lines do not rhyme, it must come from the body of a ghazal; it is probably a couplet of a ghazal with the redif (refrain word) "çıkmışız".

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The whole force of the couplet rests on a single comparison. "Mîl-i tûtiyâ" is the thin rod used to apply kohl to the eyes. The rod is dipped in kohl and drawn between the eyelids; that is, it goes into the eye and comes out, yet it does the eye no harm and leaves a perfectly straight line. Hubbî likens her own "reftâr", her bearing and conduct, to this rod: she too has gone in and out of a thousand "mahmûr", languid, beautiful eyes. In divan poetry the languid eye is the beloved's eye; and in Turkish "göze girmek", to get into someone's eye, also means to win someone's favour.

The couplet thus becomes a two-sided reply. On the one hand the poet admits that she has won the favour of many, that she has gone in and out of many eyes; on the other she says that this coming and going is as straight and harmless as the kohl stick. The word "râst", straight, expresses both the straight shape of the rod and moral uprightness; this double sense forms the double entendre (tevriye) of the couplet. Instead of denying the gossip directed at her, Hubbî turns it with a clever comparison into something harmless and even praiseworthy. The biographers' finding her words "merdâne", manly, may also be explained by self-assured utterances of this kind.

Historical Context

The sources write that Hubbî was in the close circle of Selim II, that when he became sultan she became his companion and confidante, and that she became an influential person at court. Gelibolulu Âlî records that the talk, according to some, of her secret love affairs spread "among the elite and the common people". The TDV entry's presentation of the couplet as words spoken against gossip accords with this information. However, the old source in which the couplet occurs has not been identified.

Bibliography

  • Mustafa İsmet Uzun, "Hubbî Hatun", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 18, Istanbul 1998, pp. 265-266, https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/hubbi-hatun.
  • Gelibolulu Mustafa Âlî, Künhü'l-ahbâr'ın Tezkire Kısmı, ed. Mustafa İsen, Ankara: Atatürk Kültür Merkezi, 1994, pp. 301-302, entry on Hubbî Hatun.

Online sources