Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Feʻilātün feʻilātün feʻilātün feʻilün

Fikr-i rūyuñla göñül vālih ü ḫayrān olmuş
Ḫaberim yoḳ ki saña Ꜥāşıḳ-ı nālān olmuş
Rūyuña ḫaṭ gelesi ġonce-dehānım gūyā
Sebzezār içre ruḫuñ bir gül-i ḫandān olmuş
Gice pervāneleriñ sūziş iderken kārın
Tāb-ı ruḫsārıñ ile şemꜤada sūzān olmuş
Gerçi atdı beni oḳ gibi yabāna ammā
Hele ol ḳaşı kemān şimdi peşīmān olmuş
Būs-ı laꜤlini dirīġ eyler iken Mihrīden
Ḫaber aldıḳ ki hem-āġūş-ı raḳībān olmuş

In English

1. From thinking of your face the heart has become bewildered and amazed; I had no idea that it has become a lamenting lover of yours.

2. O my bud-mouthed one, when down came upon your face, it is as though your cheek had become a laughing, opened rose amid the greenery. (In divan poetry the fine down on the cheek is likened to green, to a meadow; the rose is the cheek itself.)

3. At night, while the moths were burning at their business, the candle too has come to burn because of the brilliance of your cheek.

4. Although she threw me away into the wilds like an arrow, that bow-browed one has now become remorseful.

5. While she begrudged Mihrî the kiss of her lip, we have heard that she has become the embrace-mate of the rivals.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This ghazal is not found in Mihrî Hatun's divan. It is recorded under the pen name (mahlas) Mihrî on folio 67b of the poetry anthology numbered 43 Va 2871 in the Kütahya Vahid Paşa Provincial Public Library, and it is the last of the twenty ghazals with the pen name Mihrî in the anthology. Mutlu Muhammet Aktaş regards it as a strong possibility that these ghazals belong to Mihrî Hatun, but says that a firm judgment cannot be reached. The attribution of the poem is therefore uncertain.

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 redif (refrain word) is "olmuş", and the rhyme (kafiye) is the sound "-ân" (ḫayrân, nâlân, ḫandân, sûzân, peşîmân, raḳîbân). The "-mış" in the redif, a past tense, gives the ghazal the air of an event heard from someone else or noticed afterwards: the poet tells of what has happened not as she lives it but as she sees its consequences. It is not known to whom or on what occasion the ghazal was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet (matla) says that falling in love begins without one's noticing. The heart has been bewildered by thinking of the beloved's face, and the lover does not know when her heart turned into a lamenting lover. The words "vâlih" and "ḥayrân" belong to the same field of meaning; both describe the bewilderment that love brings.

The second couplet works a well-known conceit (mazmun) of divan poetry. The fine down (ḫaṭ) that appears on the cheek in youth is likened to green, to a lawn; the cheek that remains within this lawn is an opened rose. The epithet "ḫandân" (laughing) likens the opening of the rose to a smile. Addressing the beloved as "ġonce-dehân" (bud-mouthed) sets up a congruence of images (tenasüp) between rose and bud: the mouth is a bud not yet opened, the cheek an opened rose.

The third couplet uses the conceit of candle and moth. In divan poetry the moth is the symbol of the lover who falls in love with light and burns in the candle's flame. The poet turns this familiar relation upside down: while the moths burn around the candle, the candle burns because it cannot bear the brilliance of the beloved's cheek. The candle's burning is interpreted here as the result of its too having fallen in love with the beloved, or of its envy of her brilliance; in divan poetry this is called hüsn-i ta‘lîl, a fanciful aetiology.

In the fourth couplet there is a congruence of images among arrow, bow and eyebrow. In divan poetry the eyebrow is likened to a bow, and the arrow shot from the bow is the lover. The beloved has thrown the lover "yabana", into the wilds; an arrow shot into the wilds goes to waste and does not reach its target, and the lover too has been pushed aside and sent away. The second line of the couplet opens a small door of hope: the bow-browed one is now remorseful.

The closing couplet (makta) breaks this hope. The beloved has begrudged Mihrî the kiss, but, according to the news that has come, she has been in the embrace of rivals. The words "ḫaber aldıḳ" (we have heard) carry the hearsay past tense of the redif most plainly; the lover has not seen what happened with her own eyes but has heard of it from another. In divan poetry the rival is the person who circles around the beloved and takes the lover's place. The ghazal thus begins with admiration and ends with jealousy and hurt. As Aktaş says of the anthology ghazals, in these poems too the beloved's beauties, union, separation and the ordeal the lover endures are subjects shared with the poems in Mihrî's divan; but these are at the same time elements of expression shared by all ghazal poets of the period.

Bibliography

  • Mutlu Muhammet Aktaş, "Mihrî Hatun'un Yayımlanmamış Gazelleri", Hikmet-Akademik Edebiyat Dergisi 9/18 (Spring 2023), p. 123, ghazal 20 (Kütahya Vahid Paşa İl Halk Ktp. 43 Va 2871 Mecmû‘a-i Eş‘âr, f. 67b); discussion of attribution pp. 110-112, 124. doi:10.28981/hikmet.1200789. https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/article-file/2757129

Online sources