Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Feʻilātün feʻilātün feʻilātün feʻilün

Cevr iden dīdelerim sen ḳad-i mevzūn mıdır
Kārı mı nāle iden sen ruḫ-ı gül-gūn mıdır
Seni āzürde iden ben degilem küsme baña
Eyleyen hep nigeh-i dīde-i ber-ḫūn mıdır
Baña incinme gözüm nūrı ki cürmüm yoḳdur
Būs-ı vuṣlat iden ḫāṭır-ı maḥzūn mıdır
Arż-ı ḥāl eyledim ey şāh-ı cihān niçe zamān
Dimediñ vuṣlatım iḥsāna hümāyūn mıdır
Yoḫsa lāʾiḳ mi degildir saña efgendelige
Mihrīye hīç dimediñ Ꜥāşıḳ [u] Mecnūn mıdır

In English

1. Is it you who torment my eyes, or that well-proportioned stature? Is it you who make a business of lamenting, or that rose-coloured cheek? (The couplet can be read in two ways: the lover asks whether the one who causes her pain is the beloved herself or her beauty; or she traces the cause of her eyes' suffering and her cry to the beloved's stature and cheek. On either reading the blame falls on the beloved's beauty.)

2. It is not I who have hurt you, so do not be cross with me; could it be the gaze of my eye, full of blood, that does it? (The lover pushes the blame away from herself and puts it on her eye, bloodshot from weeping.)

3. O light of my eye, do not take offence at me, for I have no fault; is it perhaps this sorrowful heart that begs for the kiss of union?

4. O sultan of the world, for how long I have laid my condition before you and submitted my petition; not once did you say, "Is this wish for union worthy of a royal favour?"

5. Or am I perhaps not worthy of being cast down at your feet? About Mihrî you did not say even once, "Is she a lover, a Majnun?"

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This ghazal is not found in Mihrî Hatun's divan. It appears on folio 59b of the poetry anthology numbered 43 Va 2871 in the Kütahya Vahid Paşa Provincial Public Library, under the heading "Mihrī-i Mecnūn", and it was published by Mutlu Muhammet Aktaş in 2023. Aktaş considers it a strong possibility that the twenty ghazals with the pen name (mahlas) Mihrî in the anthology belong to Mihrî Hatun, but he openly admits that the comparisons made do not allow a firm judgment. The attribution of this ghazal is therefore also uncertain. It is not known to whom it was addressed.

The ghazal has five couplets (beyit) and is composed in the remel metre, in the aruz (quantitative metre) pattern "feʻilātün feʻilātün feʻilātün feʻilün". The redif (refrain word) is the question particle "mıdır", and the rhyme (kafiye) is the sound "-ûn": mevzūn, gül-gūn, ber-ḫūn, maḥzūn, hümāyūn, Mecnūn. Because the redif is a question, the whole ghazal becomes an interrogation of the beloved and, at the same time, a defence. The heading in the anthology seems to have been taken from the word "Mecnūn" in the last couplet; Aktaş thinks that such headings were added by the compiler.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal is the self-defence of a lover who is thought to have offended her beloved. In the first three couplets the lover throws the blame off herself and places it elsewhere: on the beloved's own stature and cheek, on the lover's bloodshot eye, on her sorrowful heart. Expressions such as "küsme baña" (do not be cross with me), "incinme" (do not take offence) and "cürmüm yoḳdur" (I have no fault) give the ghazal a warm tone close to everyday speech. The plain, unforced manner of expression that Aktaş finds shared between the anthology ghazals and Mihrî's divan is clearly visible here.

The "dīde-i ber-ḫūn" (eye full of blood) in the second couplet rests on the notion that from much weeping tears turn to blood; as Kaya shows, in Mihrî's divan too the lover's eye is always full of bloody tears. In saying that it is this bloody gaze that has hurt the beloved, the lover both displays her own pain and shifts the blame onto that pain. In the third couplet the beloved is addressed as "gözüm nūrı" (light of my eye); this form of address stresses the closeness between the one who hurts and the one who is hurt.

In the fourth couplet the speech passes into the language of the court. "ʻArż-ı ḥāl" is the petition in which a person informs the sultan in writing of his or her situation; "iḥsān" means the sultan's bounty, and "hümāyūn" means belonging to the sultan. The beloved is "şāh-ı cihān" (sultan of the world), and the lover is a servant submitting a petition to her. Gülşen Kaya notes that in Mihrî's divan the beloved is likened to a sultan and the lover to a bondsman (bende) awaiting the sultan's favour, and that together with the sultan, the throne, the threshold, the decree and the gate are mentioned. The congruence of images (tenasüp) among the words of this couplet makes the wish for union look like an official application; the beloved's failure ever to answer it resembles the helplessness of a petitioner waiting at the sultan's door.

In the last couplet the words "efgendelik" (being cast down, laid low) and "Mecnūn" complete the lover's state. Majnun, who lost his reason for the love of Layla, is the symbol of the lover in divan poetry; Kaya shows that in Mihrî's divan the lover is likened to Majnun for her passion and madness. The lover complains that the beloved has not said even once about her, "Is she a lover and a Majnun?" This reproach is the last link in the chain of questions that the ghazal has kept up from the start and that have gone unanswered.

Bibliography

  • Mutlu Muhammet Aktaş, "Mihrî Hatun'un Yayımlanmamış Gazelleri", Hikmet-Akademik Edebiyat Dergisi 9/18 (Spring 2023), pp. 105-126, doi:10.28981/hikmet.1200789; ghazal 13 (Kütahya Vahid Paşa İl Halk Ktp. 43 Va 2871, f. 59b), p. 119; compiler's headings p. 111; discussion pp. 110-112, 124.
  • Gülşen Kaya, Mihrî Hâtun Divânı'nın Tahlili, master's thesis, Fırat Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Elazığ 2010, pp. 72-73, 84-85, 221. openaccess.firat.edu.tr

Online sources