Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Ey cihân ḫalḳı bilüñ kim yârdan ben dönmezem
Serv-ḳadd ü lâle-ḫad dildârdan ben dönmezem
Küfr-i zülfinde ḥabîbüñ ‘aşḳ ile cân virmege
Gelmişem Manṣûr-veş berdârdan ben dönmezem
Dilberâ ‘ahd eylemişdüm yoluña cânum virem
Dostum vallâhi ol iḳrârdan ben dönmezem
Zâhidâ döndüñ ise ger yârdan sen nâr içün
Yanayın ol nâra ben ol yârdan ben dönmezem
Cânına ḳaṣd eylemiş ḫûn-rîz çeşmüñ Mihrî'nüñ
Vireyin biñ cânsa ol ḫûn-ḫârdan ben dönmezem

In English

1. O people of the world, know that I will not turn back from the beloved; from the cypress-statured, tulip-cheeked heart-stealer I will not turn back.

2. I have come, like Mansûr, to give my life in love in the unbelief of the beloved's tress; from the gallows I will not turn back. (Hallâj-ı Mansûr is the Sufi executed for his words "Ene'l-Hak" ("I am the Truth"); because the tress is long and black, it is likened both to unbelief and to the gallows.)

3. O beauty, I had made a vow to give my life on your path; my friend, by God, I will not turn back from that promise.

4. O ascetic, if you turned from the beloved because of the fire (of hell), I am willing to burn in that fire; from that beloved I will not turn back.

5. Your blood-shedding eye has set itself against Mihrî's life; even if I have a thousand lives, I would give them; from that blood-drinker I will not turn back.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The hundred and first ghazal of the divan stands in the section of the letter mîm and has five 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 "-dan ben dönmezem", "I will not turn back from ..."; the rhyme rests on the sound "-âr" (yâr, dildâr, berdâr, iḳrâr, ḫûn-ḫâr). In the fourth couplet the rhyme word "yâr" of the opening couplet is used again. The ghazal is found only in manuscripts M (81b) and Ü (51b). Manuscript M reads "zülfinden" in place of "zülfinde" in the second couplet. There is no information about whom it was written for.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The subject of the ghazal is constancy in love. Each couplet ends with the same sentence of resolve: I will not turn back. In the opening couplet the poet addresses all the people of the world and declares that she will not give up the beloved. In his paper examining the refrains of Mihrî's divan, Sıtkı Nazik notes that this refrain draws attention to the poet's resolute attitude and upright stance. According to Nazik, the poet, who shows herself bold enough to defy the people of the world where the beloved is concerned, says that she is ready to be hanged on the gallows, to burn in the fire of hell, and to sacrifice her life for the beloved.

The second couplet is the richest couplet of the ghazal. The beloved's tress, because it is black and dark, is likened to unbelief; the tress, long and hanging, calls to mind the gallows. The poet says she has come to give her life in this tress like Mansûr. Here there is an allusion (telmih) to Hallâj-ı Mansûr: the Sufi who was executed for saying "Ene'l-Hak" (I am the Truth) out of love for God, and who did not go back on his word, is in divan poetry the example of the lover who risks death for love. Gülşen Kaya notes that this couplet alludes to Mansûr's not retracting his word out of love for God, and proposes a Sufi reading: by saying that one must give one's life in divine love amid kesret (multiplicity, here the tress), the couplet points to the saying, often cited in Sufism, "die before you die". The use together of the words "küfr", "Manṣûr" and "berdâr" is an example of tenasüp (congruence of images, the use together of words close in meaning).

In the fourth couplet one of the familiar oppositions of divan poetry, the ascetic (zâhid) and the lover, is set face to face. The zâhid is one who attaches importance to outward appearance and worships out of hope of paradise and fear of hell. The poet tells him that if he turned from the beloved out of fear of the fire of hell, she is willing to burn in that fire. In the couplet the words "nâr" (fire) and "yâr" (beloved) are very close in sound and come side by side in the same line; this closeness reinforces the meaning of the couplet in the ear as well.

In the closing couplet the beloved's eye is a killer: it is called "ḫûn-rîz" (blood-shedding) and "ḫûn-ḫâr" (blood-drinking). Kaya illustrates with this couplet that in the divan the eye is mentioned as a killer in that it sets itself against the lover's life, and that even when her life is sought the lover does not give up the beloved's eyes. The poet's saying that she would give all of a thousand lives, were she to have them, completes the ghazal's theme of resolve through the art of hyperbole. The oath "vallâhi" in the third couplet and the address to the beloved as "dostum" (my friend) lend the poem an intimate, conversational tone.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Mehmet Arslan (ed.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları (Kültür Eserleri Dizisi 576), 2018, pp. 104-105, Ghazal 101 (M 81b, Ü 51b). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr
  • Sabiha Gemici, Mihrî Hatun Divanı: Karşılaştırmalı Metin, Cümle Yapısı ve Cümle Türleri, doctoral dissertation, Uludağ Üniversitesi, Balıkesir 1990 (ghazal 104 in Gemici's numbering).

Academic studies

  • 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 p. 138).
  • Gülşen Kaya, Mihrî Hâtun Divânı'nın Tahlili, master's thesis, Fırat Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Elazığ 2010 (entries on Hallâj-ı Mansûr and the killer eye). openaccess.firat.edu.tr

Books

  • Didem Havlioğlu (ed.), Ġazeliyyât-ı Mihrî-i Ḥaḳîre, OTAP electronic edition, ghazal 104 (text published on the türkoloji-iran page, 2007).

Online sources