Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Feʻilātün feʻilātün feʻilātün feʻilün

Mevsim-i gül baña ey dil-ber-i gül-rū gelgil
Söyle nāz itme baña ṭūṭī-i ḫoş-gū gelgil
Baña raḥm eyle güzel başıñ içün cevr itme
Gelgil inṣāfa eyā şūḫ-ı cefā-cū gelgil
Mūy-miyānıñ alup āġūşa dem-i vuṣlatda
Öpeyin gerden ü laꜤliñ gül-i ḫoş-bū gelgil
Lāleveş dāġ-ı dil-zārımı seyr eyleyesin
Sāḥa-i sīneme ey gözleri āhū gelgil
Mihrī-i zāra neler eyledi derd ü Ꜥaşḳıñ
Görmege künc-i ġama gel ḳad-i dil-cū gelgil

In English

1. O rose-faced beloved, the season of the rose has come, come to me; speak, O sweet-voiced parrot, do not play coy with me, come.

2. Have mercy on me for the sake of your beautiful head, do not torment me; O coquette who delights in cruelty, come to justice, come.

3. In the moment of union let me take your hair-thin waist into my embrace and kiss your neck and your ruby lip; O sweet-scented rose, come.

4. So that you may look at the scar of my wounded heart, like a tulip's, come to the field of my breast, O gazelle-eyed one, come. (The dark spot at the centre of the tulip is likened in divan poetry to the wound of love in the lover's heart.)

5. What your pain and love have done to the lamenting Mihrî; come to the corner of grief to see it, O tall one who wins hearts, come.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This ghazal is not found in the known manuscripts of Mihrî Hatun's divan. It appears under the pen name (mahlas) Mihrî on folio 66b of the poetry anthology numbered 43 Va 2871 in the Kütahya Vahid Paşa Provincial Public Library. Mutlu Muhammet Aktaş, who studied the anthology, regards it as a strong possibility that the ghazals in it belong to Mihrî Hatun, but stresses that a firm judgment cannot be reached. The attribution of the poem to Mihrî Hatun is therefore uncertain. Yet several of the linguistic clues that Aktaş cites in favour of attribution are gathered in this very ghazal.

The ghazal has five couplets (beyit) and is composed in the remel metre, in the aruz (quantitative metre) pattern "Fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilün". The rhyme (kafiye) is built on the sound "-û" (gül-rû, ḫoş-gû, cefâ-cû, ḫoş-bû, âhû, dil-cû), and the redif (refrain word) is "gelgil". According to Aktaş's footnote, in the opening couplet (matla) the vocative "eyâ" is written as "ey" for the sake of the metre. It is not known to whom or on what occasion the ghazal was written.

"Gelgil" is the imperative "gel" (come) formed with the suffix "-gil", which in Old Anatolian Turkish gave an imperative extra force. Aktaş takes up this suffix separately in the discussion of attribution: he says that the same suffix is used in Mihrî Hatun's divan in verbs such as "eylegil", "itgil" and "sevmegil", that this is natural for a poet who lived in the fifteenth century, and that it suggests the ghazal too may have been written in that period. In the same place he adds that the suffix is also seen, rarely, in later centuries, and that it therefore does not give a conclusive result. Aktaş also notes that the expressions "mevsim-i gül", "künc-i ġam" and "mûy-miyân", which Mihrî often uses in her divan, also occur in the anthology ghazals; all three of these expressions are in this ghazal. In the divan, "mevsim-i gül" appears in the 112th ghazal, and "mûy-miyân" in the 203rd and 209th.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal as a whole is an invitation. Each couplet calls the beloved by a different epithet and ends with the same word: come. The beloved is called, in turn, rose-faced, sweet-voiced parrot, coquette who loves cruelty, sweet-scented rose, gazelle-eyed and tall one who wins hearts. Most of these epithets are placed as rhyme words directly before the redif, so that at the end of each line a quality of the beloved and the word of invitation stand side by side.

The opening couplet joins spring with the wish for union. The season of the rose is, in divan poetry, the time of revelry and of meeting the beloved; for a rose-faced beloved to come in this season sets up a harmony between face and season. Calling the beloved "ṭûṭî" (parrot) points to her sweet speech. The parrot is the bird that speaks beautifully in divan poetry, and the beloved's tongue and speech are likened to it. In the second couplet the beloved is mentioned both with her beautiful head and as "cefâ-cû", that is, one who seeks to inflict torment; the lover asks her for pity and justice.

The third couplet speaks of union openly in bodily images: the hair-thin waist, the neck and the red lip. "La‘l" is the name of a red precious stone and stands for the lip in divan poetry. In the fourth couplet a simile is drawn between the tulip and the breast. The black spot at the centre of the tulip is imagined as the burn mark (dâġ) that the fire of love has left on the lover's heart; the lover invites the beloved to the "field" of her breast to look at this mark. "Âhû" (gazelle) is a common comparison for the beloved's large, shy eyes.

In the closing couplet (makta) the invitation turns into a request for pity. Mihrî calls herself "zâr" (lamenting) and summons the beloved to the corner of grief to see what pain and love have done to her. "Künc-i ġam" (corner of grief) denotes the place where the lover withdraws from the world and is left alone with her pain. The repetition "gel ... gelgil" in the couplet echoes, for the last time and in a more insistent voice, the call kept up throughout the ghazal.

Bibliography

  • Mutlu Muhammet Aktaş, "Mihrî Hatun'un Yayımlanmamış Gazelleri", Hikmet-Akademik Edebiyat Dergisi 9/18 (Spring 2023), p. 121, ghazal 16 and n. 6 (Kütahya Vahid Paşa İl Halk Ktp. 43 Va 2871 Mecmû‘a-i Eş‘âr, f. 66b); the "-gil" suffix and shared expressions p. 111; discussion of attribution pp. 110-112, 124. doi:10.28981/hikmet.1200789. https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/article-file/2757129
  • Mehmet Arslan (ed.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları (Kültür Eserleri Dizisi 576), 2018, Ghazals 112, 203 and 209 (for comparison). https://ekitap.ktb.gov.tr/Eklenti/58679,mihri-hatun-divanipdf.pdf

Online sources