Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mefâ‘îlün Mefâ‘îlün Mefâ‘îlün Mefâ‘îlün

Bugün şâdân u ḫandânam ki mürde cisme cân buldum
Göñül mülkine çün şâhı emîr-i kâm-rân buldum
Bu eşk-i seyl-i Ceyḥûn'um ḳo baḥr-ı Nîl olsun kim
Kenârumda ḳadüñ gibi sehî serv-i revân buldum
Def ü çeng ü rebâb ile demidür ‘ayş u nûş idem
Viṣâl-i yâr ile çünkim şarâb-ı erġavân buldum
Nigârâ tâ ḫalâṣ itdüñ beni girdâb-ı ḥasretden
Feraḥdan şâd-mân oldum belâlardan emân buldum
Teşebbüh ideli Mihrî ḫadüñe verd-i ḥamrâyı
Çemende lâlenüñ baġrın ḥasedden ṭolu ḳan buldum

In English

1. Today I am joyful and smiling, for I have found life in my dead body; I have found a king for the realm of my heart, a fortunate emir who has attained his desire. (Union with the beloved is likened to life returning to a dead body; the beloved is the sovereign of the heart.)

2. Let this tear of mine, a flood like the Jayhun, become the sea of the Nile; for on my shore I have found a tall, swaying cypress like your stature. (The cypress grows by water; the more the lover's tears increase, the closer the cypress-statured beloved is to her. "Kenâr" means both shore and embrace.)

3. It is time to feast and drink to the daf, the çeng and the rebab; for with union with the beloved I have found wine the color of the Judas tree. (The daf is a frame drum, the çeng a harp, the rebab a bowed lute.)

4. O beauty, since you delivered me from the whirlpool of longing, I have become glad with joy, and I have found refuge from calamities.

5. Since Mihrî compared your cheek to the red rose, I have found the tulip's heart in the meadow full of blood from envy. (The red color of the tulip and the dark spot in its center are explained as the result of the jealousy it feels because the beloved's cheek has been compared to the rose.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The hundred and third ghazal of the divan stands in the section of the letter mîm and has five couplets. It is composed in the hezec meter of the aruz (quantitative metre), in the pattern "Mefâ‘îlün Mefâ‘îlün Mefâ‘îlün Mefâ‘îlün". The redif (refrain word) is the verb "buldum", "I found"; the rhyme rests on the sound "-ân" (cân, kâm-rân, revân, erġavân, emân, ḳan). The ghazal is found in all four manuscripts (F 58b, M 82a, S 60b, Ü 51b). Manuscripts F and S read "şâh" in place of "şâhı" in the opening couplet, Ü reads "Kenârında" in place of "Kenârumda" in the second, S reads "‘ayş" in place of "‘ayş u" in the third, and F reads "baġruñ" in place of "baġrın" in the last couplet. There is no information about whom it was written for.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The greater part of the divan ghazal is built on separation, longing and the beloved's cruelty; this ghazal tells the joy of union, of vuslat. The word "bugün" (today) in the opening couplet gives the poem the fresh joy of a moment. Each couplet ends with the verb "buldum", and the poet lists one by one what union has given her: life for a dead body, a sovereign for the realm of the heart, a cypress on the shore of her tears, wine the color of the Judas tree, refuge from calamities. This order of enumeration in the refrain lends the ghazal unity.

In the second couplet there is a hyperbole built with the names of rivers. The lover's tear is likened to the flood of the Jayhun, and the poet says she is even willing for this tear to become the sea of the Nile. Gülşen Kaya illustrates with this couplet that in Mihrî's divan the Nile and the Jayhun are used in the same couplet to describe the lover's tears. The couplet also uses the connection between cypress and water: the cypress tree grows by water; if the tear has become a river, it is natural for the cypress-statured beloved to be on its bank. The word "kenâr" means both shore and embrace; with this second meaning the line also says that the beloved is now in the lover's arms. The intending of both meanings of the word is the art of tevriye (double entendre, the use of a word so as to suggest two meanings at once).

The third couplet is a picture of a pleasure gathering. The instruments daf, çeng and rebab, feasting and drinking, and wine the color of the Judas tree are mentioned together. Kaya notes that in the divan instruments are used as elements of the işret and the bezm (drinking gathering), especially in couplets concerned with spring, and gives this couplet as an example. The use together of the concepts instrument, gathering and wine is tenasüp (congruence of images, the use together of words close in meaning). In the fourth couplet longing is likened to a whirlpool. According to Kaya, longing is a powerful whirlpool that constantly turns around the lover, draws her in and brings her to the threshold of death, and the only power that can pull the lover out of this whirlpool is the beloved.

In the closing couplet the art of hüsn-i ta‘lîl (attributing an event to a beautiful, fanciful cause) is used. The red color of the tulip and the dark spot in its heart are known in divan poetry as the tulip's burnt heart. Mihrî ties the cause of this color to her own poem: the poet has compared the beloved's cheek to the red rose, and the tulip, envying this comparison, has had its heart filled with blood. The poet thus closes the ghazal by praising both the beloved's cheek and the power of her own simile.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Mehmet Arslan (ed.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları (Kültür Eserleri Dizisi 576), 2018, pp. 105-106, Ghazal 103 (F 58b, M 82a, S 60b, 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 106 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 rivers, instruments and the whirlpool). 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 refrains in Mihrî's divan: "buldum", G.103).

Books

  • Didem Havlioğlu (ed.), Ġazeliyyât-ı Mihrî-i Ḥaḳîre, OTAP electronic edition, ghazal 106 (text published on the türkoloji-iran page, 2007).

Online sources