Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Bulmadum bir gün vefâ sevgülü yârumdan benüm
Geçmedi bilmen nedür devlet kenârumdan benüm
İñlerem tâ ṣubḥ olınca nâlem işitmez ḥabîb
Gerçi ‘âlemler ṭolupdur âh u zârumdan benüm
Umma ey dil bülbüli ol gülden iñen raḥm kim
Yeg anuñ ḳatında bir ḫârı hezârumdan benüm
Şem‘ gibi yanduġum hecrüñde görüp ehl-i ‘aşḳ
Cân virür pervâne-veş almaġa nârumdan benüm
Cânı vir cânân yolında yâri kes aġyârdan
Yoḫsa ey Mihrî n'olur ‘âlemde varumdan benüm

In English

1. I have not found faithfulness for a single day from my beloved; I do not know why, good fortune has not passed even by my side. (The second line can also be read as "good fortune has not passed through my shore; I do not know what good fortune is"; "devlet" here means fortune and happiness.)

2. I lament until morning, and the beloved does not hear my cry; although the worlds are filled with my sighs and laments.

3. O heart-nightingale, do not expect much mercy from that rose; in her sight a thorn is better than my thousand cries. ("Hezâr" means both "thousand" and "nightingale"; the line is also understood as "a thorn is better than my thousand nightingales". The thorn stands for the rival who never leaves the rose's side.)

4. Seeing me burn like a candle in your separation, the people of love give their lives like moths to take a light from my fire.

5. Give your life on the path of the beloved, separate the beloved from the strangers; otherwise, O Mihrî, what would my existence mean in the world?

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The hundred and second 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 "-umdan benüm", "of mine"; the rhyme rests on the sound "-âr" (yâr, kenâr, zâr, hezâr, nâr, var). The ghazal is found in all four manuscripts (F 57a, M 79b, S 59a, Ü 51b). The only difference between manuscripts recorded in the edition is that manuscript F reads "ṭolıdur" in place of "ṭolupdur" in the second couplet. There is no information about whom it was written for.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal begins with the complaint of a love that finds no response. In the opening couplet the lover says that she has not seen faithfulness from the beloved for a single day, and that happiness has not even passed by her. In the second couplet this solitude is magnified by a hyperbole: the lover's sighs and laments have filled all the worlds, but the beloved does not hear this voice. The image of lamenting until morning is the familiar state of the lover in divan poetry who sleeps no nights.

The third couplet is the most remarkable couplet of the ghazal in artistry. In divan poetry the rose stands for the beloved, the nightingale for the lover, and the thorn for the rival who does not leave the rose's side. The poet likens her heart to a nightingale and tells it not to expect mercy from that rose, for in the rose's presence a thorn is preferable to the lover's "hezâr". In Persian "hezâr" means both "thousand" and "nightingale". The line therefore carries both meanings together: a thorn is worth more than the lover's thousand cries and than thousands of nightingales. This use, in which both meanings of the word are intended, is the art of tevriye (double entendre, the use of a word so as to suggest two meanings at once). In addition, the words "ḫâr" (thorn) and "hezâr" are close in sound. Gülşen Kaya gives this couplet as an example when she says that the nightingale is foremost among the images used for the heart in the divan, and explains the couplet as meaning that the heart-nightingale should not expect pity from the beloved, because in her sight a thorn (the rival) is superior to the lover's thousand cries.

In the fourth couplet one of the best-known mazmuns (conventional images) of divan poetry, the candle and the moth, is used. The moth is the night butterfly that flies toward light and fire and burns its wings; the candle is a being that gives light as it burns and melts away. Usually the beloved is the candle and the lover the moth. In this couplet the roles change: the lover, burning with the fire of separation, is a candle, and the other lovers who see her give their lives like moths to take from her fire. Kaya cites this couplet among the couplets in which the lover is seen as a candle, and returns to the same couplet when she examines the places where the lover is herself a burning fire.

In the closing couplet the ghazal moves from complaint to resolution. The poet addresses herself and tells herself to give her life on the path of the beloved and to separate the beloved from strangers; otherwise her existence in the world would have no meaning. The use together of the words "cân" and "cânân", and the connection in sound and meaning between "yâr" and "aġyâr", strengthen the phrasing of the couplet. According to Sıtkı Nazik's table, the refrain "benüm" is among the shared refrains of Mihrî and Tâcîzâde Cafer Çelebi; in Mihrî it appears in this ghazal and in the hundredth ghazal.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Mehmet Arslan (ed.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları (Kültür Eserleri Dizisi 576), 2018, p. 105, Ghazal 102 (F 57a, M 79b, S 59a, 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 105 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 heart-nightingale, candle-moth and fire). 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 (table of shared refrains, p. 140).

Books

  • Didem Havlioğlu (ed.), Ġazeliyyât-ı Mihrî-i Ḥaḳîre, OTAP electronic edition, ghazal 105 (text published on the türkoloji-iran page, 2007).

Online sources