Melîhî was one of the well-known divan poets of the reign of Mehmed II (the Conqueror), and one of the figures about whom the biographical anthologies of poets (tezkires) tell the most stories, on account of his wit and his love of wine. Most tezkires regard him as a native of Tokat; they relate that he taught poetry to Ahmed Paşa of Bursa, entered Mehmed II's private circle through him, and fell from the sultan's favour because of his drinking. His connection with Amasya rests on a single sentence in Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar's Amasya Tarihi: Hüsameddin counts Melîhî among the poets well known at the circumcision festivities Şehzade Ahmed (Prince Ahmed) held in Amasya in 911 (1505-06), calling him "the greatest drinker, Melîhî of Tokat". The sixteenth-century tezkires and the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, however, place him in the age of Mehmed II and say that he died early in the reign of Bayezid II. His link with Amasya is therefore disputed and is discussed separately below. The tezkires preserve from him parts of two ghazals, part of a kaside, a kıta and seven couplets. Melîhî is also mentioned, together with the other poets of Prince Ahmed's circle, in the article Prince Ahmed's Amasya circle and its poets.

Hüsameddin's Record

Melîhî has no entry of his own in Hüsameddin's Amasya Tarihi. His name occurs once, in the section describing the circumcision festivities Prince Ahmed held for his sons in 911:

Bu esnâda Amasya'da Türk şu'arâsından Çeşmî, Şermî, Figânî, Kâmî, Melîhî, Münîrî, Mihrî ve Acem şu'arâsından Basîrî, Penâhî, Kutbî pek ma'rûf idiler. Bunların içinde en ayyâşı Tokatlı Melîhî, en terbiyelisi Şermî, en fâzılı da Münîrî Efendiler idi. En şâyân-ı dikkat Mihrî Hâtun'du.

In English: At this time the Turkish poets Çeşmî, Şermî, Figânî, Kâmî, Melîhî, Münîrî and Mihrî, and the Persian poets Basîrî, Penâhî and Kutbî, were well known in Amasya. Among them the greatest drinker was Melîhî of Tokat, the best mannered Şermî, and the most learned Münîrî Efendi. The most remarkable was Mihrî Hatun. Hüsameddin then adds that these poets, carried away, celebrated the festivities with fine kasides and received rich rewards. The research notes on this section, which covers the period of Prince Ahmed, are published on this site under the title Sultân Ahmed (1).

His Life

Melîhî's real name and the dates of his birth and death are unknown. Latîfî presents him as one of the class of judges from the sanjak of Tokat; Kınalızâde Hasan Çelebi and Gelibolulu Âlî also say he came from the Tokat region. Âşık Çelebi, however, writes that he was from either Sinop or Kastamonu. According to Sabahattin Küçük's article in the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, he received a good education from an early age, went to Iran as a young man to further his studies, and there learned Arabic, Persian and rhetoric. Âşık Çelebi describes this journey in more detail: after completing his learning in the lands of Rum, Melîhî went to the lands of the Persians, attached himself to many scholars and in Khorasan became a fellow student of Molla Câmî (Jami). According to the entry on Şeyh Rûşenî in Sehî Bey's tezkire, he and the Halveti sheikh Dede Ömer Rûşenî spent their days and nights together in their youth, and the jests that passed between them were beyond counting.

Melîhî's brilliant period in Istanbul began with his acquaintance with Ahmed Paşa of Bursa. Sehî calls him "Ahmed Paşa's master and guide in poetry". According to Latîfî he was Ahmed Paşa's boon companion and contemporary, and through his patronage and training found his way into the private circle of Mehmed II and joined the sultan's intimates. Gelibolulu Âlî writes that in Mehmed II's gatherings his absence was felt like food without salt. The biographers speak highly of Melîhî's learning. Latîfî says that he knew the science of poetry well and debated rhetoric with the learned poets in gatherings. Âlî adds that he was also a master of logic and philosophy, and that he taught the sons of Jewish physicians, but took his fee not in coin but in wine.

All the biographers tell the real story of his life through wine. According to Latîfî, Melîhî would pawn his robe and turban to the tavern keeper, and use two full cups as spectacles to read books in the tavern like an aged scholar. He pawned each of his books in some tavern for a measure of wine, so that all his books ended up scattered among the taverns. In describing this state Latîfî also quotes a Persian line: "خرقه رهن کرو باده و دفتر جامی". According to the edition's footnote, the line says that the poet pawned a cloak and a notebook for every cup of wine. The line is not Melîhî's; it is a quotation the biographer found fitting for his condition.

According to Latîfî, his friend from youth Şeyh Rûşenî once sent him word asking how long this dissipation would go on, and saying that if he came he would give him the wine of love to drink from the cup of affection. Melîhî replied that if Rûşenî could give him the delight and rapture of two cups of wine, he would leave the tavern and remain a disciple at his lodge until his death. After this reply the biographer quotes two couplets by Melîhî. Âşık Çelebi tells of a similar relationship through Molla Câmî. Câmî, unaware of his old fellow student's condition and thinking him a renowned scholar in Rum, sent him some of his treatises and a letter of friendship. When the treatises were handed to him in the tavern, Melîhî excused himself, saying that he was no longer worthy to take such things in hand, wept over his wretched state and asked Câmî for his prayers.

The story of Mehmed II's oath of repentance appears with small differences in Sehî, Latîfî, Kınalızâde and Âlî. The sultan makes Melîhî swear off drink; according to Latîfî he also gives him a high post. Melîhî keeps his word for a time and tries to replace wine with boza, hemp and other intoxicants, but finds the taste of wine in none of them. In the end, so as not to break his oath, he has wine administered to himself "medically", by enema. According to Latîfî he is caught wandering drunk at Tahtelkale in Istanbul and brought before the sultan. The enraged Mehmed orders him thrown into the sea off Galata. Melîhî, for his part, swears oath after oath that he has not touched a cup since his repentance. His mouth is smelled, and no smell of wine is found. When the sultan gently asks for the truth, the poet explains the method he used. The jest pleases the sultan and his offence is pardoned. Sehî ends the story differently: Mehmed pardoned him but never again brought him near. According to Sehî, Melîhî was removed from the sultan's service because of his drinking and died in hardship.

Latîfî relates that in old age Melîhî walked with a stick when sober but went home without it when drunk, and answered those who asked the reason with a kıta. He writes that his teeth fell out early and that when Mehmed II asked him why, he answered with a couplet. According to the TDV article his addiction grew worse after Mehmed II's death, and he died early in the reign of Bayezid II (1481-1512). It is also said that towards the end of his life he felt deep remorse for his sins.

His Connection with Amasya

The only record linking Melîhî to Amasya is the list of poets Hüsameddin gives when describing the festivities of 911. Hüsameddin does not say on which source this information rests. He states elsewhere that he took much of his information on Prince Ahmed's period from Münîrî's collection, which he himself had seen and which was later destroyed by fire; this list may have come from there as well. None of the sixteenth-century tezkires associates Melîhî with Amasya, with Prince Ahmed or with Bayezid II's governorship of Amasya. Tokat is a neighbouring city of Amasya, and the phrase "Melîhî of Tokat" suggests that Hüsameddin meant the poet of the tezkires.

The State of the Sources and Discussion

The contradiction between Hüsameddin's record and the tezkires is plain. All the tezkires place Melîhî in the circle of Mehmed II (1451-1481) and of Ahmed Paşa. Sehî writes that he died after being removed from the sultan's service. The TDV article, weighing the sources, places his death early in Bayezid II's reign. Âşık Çelebi's statement that he was a fellow student of Molla Câmî in Khorasan also places him in the generation of Câmî, who was born in 1414. On this evidence Melîhî was either no longer alive in 1505 or must have been about ninety. It seems hard to imagine a poet regarded as Ahmed Paşa's teacher reciting a kaside at a prince's festivities at that age.

Several explanations of the contradiction can be considered. Hüsameddin may have added this famous poet of Mehmed II's day to Prince Ahmed's circle by mistake. He may also have merged another Melîhî from his source, unknown today, with the Melîhî of Tokat known from the tezkires. The list may also, rather than giving only the poets of the festival year, name in general the poets known in Amasya throughout the age of the princes; in that case Melîhî must have had some connection with the city during Bayezid's governorship of Amasya, which according to Hüsameddin lasted twenty-six years and ended in 1481, but no record shows this. These explanations are our own inferences and could not be settled by documents. That Hüsameddin's description "the greatest drinker" matches exactly the reputation found in the tezkires strongly suggests that he meant the poet of Mehmed II's age.

There are small differences among the tezkires too. For his birthplace Tokat stands beside Sinop or Kastamonu, and for the end of the repentance story the versions of pardon and of banishment stand side by side. Gelibolulu Âlî says that Latîfî and Âşık Çelebi made him a fellow student of Molla Câmî; this information is not found in the edition of Latîfî we examined, only in Âşık Çelebi. The texts of the poems also vary from one tezkire to another; these differences are shown on the page of each poem.

His Poetry

According to the TDV article Melîhî did not compile a divan. His poems are scattered across poetry anthologies and collections of nazires (response poems). Eğirdirli Hacı Kemal's Câmiu'n-nezâir contains ten of his poems, Edirneli Nazmî's Mecmau'n-nezâir two, and another anonymous Câmiu'n-nezâir eighteen; Muharrem Ergin published these in 1948. Many poets, Ahmed Paşa above all, wrote nazires to his poems. A famous murabba of his and the line "Gönül ey vay gönül vay gönül ey vay gönül" are also mentioned. Ergin's publication and these collections could not be examined for this study; the poems here are limited to the texts in the tezkires.

The poems by Melîhî that survive in the tezkires appear as separate articles in this category. From Latîfî: three couplets of the ghazal "Dil düşdi yine derdine bir tâze civânuñ"; seven couplets of a kaside arranged in the order of the letters of the alphabet ("Ol ḳadüñe üykündügiyçün serv ü çenâr"); the kıta "Bu Melîḥî iki ʿaṣâ götürür"; and the couplets "Mâh-rûlar leblerine diş bilerdüm dem-be-dem", "Mey iç ḫoş geç göñül yıḳma cihânda", "Gözüñ aç ḥâleti çoḳdur mey-i nâbuñ ṣûfî", "Sebʿa-i seyyâle ṣun sâḳi" and "Âferînler şarâb-ı gül-renge". From Sehî: the two couplets beginning "Micmer görüben sûzumı içi oda yandı". From Âşık Çelebi: the couplets "Müşterî oldı göñül bir ṣanem-i meh-çihre" and "Lebinsüz her ne mey ki içdüm ise". Of these, Latîfî presents "Mey iç ḫoş geç" and "Âferînler" as couplets Melîhî constantly had on his lips or recited when drunk; it is not certain that these two are his own poems.

These fragments reveal a poetic world that matches the portrait the biographers draw. The themes of wine, the tavern and teasing the ascetic predominate; the wit usually springs from the poet's own condition, his stick, his lost teeth, the slap he received. Alongside these there are turns of phrase that allude to suras of the Qur'an and to the art of calligraphy and display his knowledge of rhetoric. Latîfî's calling him "emlahu'ş-şu'arâ", the saltiest, that is the wittiest, of poets, is a compliment that plays on the word "melîh" in his pen name.

Chronology

1451-1481: Reign of Mehmed II; according to the tezkires Melîhî is among the sultan's boon companions in this period.

After 1481: According to the TDV article, dies early in the reign of Bayezid II.

911 (1505-06): Hüsameddin counts Melîhî of Tokat among the poets known at Prince Ahmed's circumcision festivities in Amasya.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Academic studies

Official sources

Online sources