Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilün

İşidüp şîrîn sözin ol la‘l-i ḳandümden benüm
Ḥaḳ bilür kim gitdüm ol dem kendü kendümden benüm
Şâdam ol cânân meger efġânum işidüp dimiş
Gitmemiş ‘aşḳum daḫi bu derd-mendümden benüm
Zülfüñe ṭolaşdı dil murġı didüm dilber didi
Key ḥaẕer ḳıl kimse ḳurtulmaz bu bendümden benüm
Didi miskîn sen misin zülfüm giriftârı hemân
Nice cânlar boynı baġludur kemendümden benüm
Ger size cânân gerekse cân virüñ cânân buluñ
Ġâfil olmañ mübtelâlar işbu pendümden benüm
Muṣḥaf-ı ḥüsnüñ ḥaḳıçün bir naẓar ḳıl ḥâlüme
Ḥaḳḳı ḥâżır gör begüm ḳorḳmazsañ andumdan benim
Mihrî sen ḳılma şikâyet dest-i cevr-i yârdan
Her ne gelse ḫoş gelür baña efendümden benüm

In English

1. On hearing a sweet word from that lip, red as ruby and sweet as sugar candy, I went out of myself at that moment; God knows it.

2. I am glad: perhaps that beloved heard my lament and said, "This afflicted lover's love for me has not yet gone."

3. I said, "The bird of the heart has become entangled in your tress," and the beloved answered, "Take great care, no one escapes from this bond of mine."

4. She said: "Poor one, are you the only captive of my tress? The necks of many souls are bound to my lasso." (A kemend is a hunting rope with a noose at the end; the beloved's long, curling hair is likened to a lasso.)

5. "If you want a beloved, give your life and find the beloved; O you who are afflicted with love, do not be heedless of this counsel of mine." (The couplet can be read in two ways: as the continuation of the beloved's words, or as the poet's counsel to lovers.)

6. For the sake of the Mushaf of your beauty, cast one glance at my state; my lord, if you do not fear my oath, consider God present. (That is, do not forget that God sees everything.)

7. Mihrî, do not complain of the beloved's hand of cruelty; whatever comes to me from my lord is welcome.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The hundredth ghazal of the divan stands in the section of the letter mîm and has seven couplets. It is composed in the remel meter of the aruz (quantitative metre), in the pattern "Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilün". The redif (refrain word) is "-ümden benüm", "of mine"; the rhyme rests on the sound "-end" (ḳand, kend, derd-mend, bend, kemend, pend, efend). In the sixth couplet the rhyme word is in the form "andumdan benim"; here the likeness in sound is only just sufficient. The ghazal is found in all four manuscripts (F 56b, M 78a, S 58b, Ü 51a). Manuscript F reads "Zülfine" in place of "Zülfüñe" in the third couplet and "naẓar" in place of "bir naẓar" in the sixth; manuscript Ü says "Her ki gelse" in place of "Her ne gelse" in the last couplet. There is no information about whom it was written for.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The most distinctive feature of the ghazal is that it reports a conversation between lover and beloved. In the third and fourth couplets, with the words "didüm" (I said) and "didi" (she said), a short question-and-answer scene is set up: the lover says that the bird of the heart has become entangled in the beloved's hair; the beloved replies coquettishly that no one escapes this bond and that the necks of many souls are bound to her lasso. This manner, called sual ü cevap (question and answer) in divan poetry, gives the ghazal the liveliness of a small scene. In the second couplet too the beloved's word is reported indirectly; thus in more than half of the ghazal the beloved speaks.

The images concerning hair stand at the center of this conversation. The heart is a bird caught in the beloved's hair; the hair is both a snare (bend) and a hunting rope (kemend). Gülşen Kaya notes that in divan poetry the heart is likened to a bird in a clichéd way and that there is no escape for the heart-bird caught in the trap of the beloved's hair; she gives the third couplet as an example there, and the fourth couplet where she examines the places in which the lasso is treated as the hair that binds the lover's neck. The use together of the words bend, kemend and zülüf is tenasüp (congruence of images, the use together of words close in meaning).

In the opening couplet the beloved's lip is called "la‘l-i ḳand", a ruby sweet as sugar candy, and the word that comes from it is "şîrîn" (sweet). Kaya illustrates with this couplet that the words sugar, şîrîn and kand are used in the divan for the beloved's lip and speech. In the same couplet the phrase "kendü kendümden" (out of my very self) describes the intoxication of the lover who goes out of herself at a sweet word. In the sixth couplet the beloved's beauty is likened to the Qur'an, that is, the Mushaf. According to Kaya, the simile "Muṣḥaf-ı ḥüsn" is used to express the sanctity and perfection of the beloved's beauty and also points to beauty's having God as its source. The lover swears in the name of this sacred beauty and reminds the beloved that, if she does not fear this oath, God sees everything.

The ghazal ends in submission rather than reproach. In the closing couplet the poet addresses herself and tells herself not to complain of the beloved's cruelty, for whatever comes from "her lord" is welcome. In divan poetry it is a familiar attitude for the lover to count the beloved's cruelty as a kindness.

In the ghazal the beloved is addressed as "begüm" (my lord) and "efendüm" (my master). In his paper comparing Mihrî and Tâcîzâde Cafer Çelebi, Sıtkı Nazik, treating Cafer Çelebi's ghazal with the refrain "olsun begüm", notes that the word "bey" is used for a man, and that had Mihrî Hatun said this refrain, it could be thought very probable that the addressee was a man. In this ghazal Mihrî uses exactly these forms of address. According to Nazik's table, the refrain "benüm" is among the shared refrains of the two poets: in Mihrî it appears in this ghazal and in the hundred and second ghazal, in Cafer Çelebi in six poems.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Mehmet Arslan (ed.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları (Kültür Eserleri Dizisi 576), 2018, p. 104, Ghazal 100 (F 56b, M 78a, S 58b, Ü 51a). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr
  • Sabiha Gemici, Mihrî Hatun Divanı: Karşılaştırmalı Metin, Cümle Yapısı ve Cümle Türleri, doctoral dissertation, Uludağ Üniversitesi, Balıkesir 1990 (ghazal 103 in Gemici's numbering).

Academic studies

  • Gülşen Kaya, Mihrî Hâtun Divânı'nın Tahlili, master's thesis, Fırat Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Elazığ 2010 (entries on the Mushaf, the lasso, the heart-bird and sugar). openaccess.firat.edu.tr
  • Sıtkı Nazik, "Benzer Redifli Şiirleri Bağlamında Mihrî Hatun ve Tâcî-zâde Cafer Çelebi'nin Karşılaştırılması", Uluslararası Amasya Âlimleri Sempozyumu Bildiriler Kitabı II, Amasya 2017, pp. 133-148 (especially pp. 139-140).

Books

  • Didem Havlioğlu (ed.), Ġazeliyyât-ı Mihrî-i Ḥaḳîre, OTAP electronic edition, ghazal 103 (text published on the türkoloji-iran page, 2007).

Online sources