Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Ḥasretüñden ṣûretüm zerdi ‘ayândur lâ-cerem
Fürḳatüñden gözlerüm yaşı revândur lâ-cerem
Hem-demüm âhum olupdur mûnisüm gözüm yaşı
Kimse bilmez ḥâlümi derdüm nihândur lâ-cerem
Nice Ferhâd olmasun ‘aşḳuñ beyâbânında dil
Gice gündüz ẕikri sen şîrîn-zebândur lâ-cerem
Çünki sulṭân oldı dil taḫtında ‘aşḳuñ dilberâ
Ser-be-ser cân mülkine ḥükmüñ revândur lâ-cerem
Ol kemân-ebrûña cânum nice ḳurbân itmeyem
Ġamzeñ oḳlarına çün sînem nişândur lâ-cerem
Bende-dil cânâ ṭapuñdan hergiz âzâd olmasun
Kim ḫayâlüñ göñlümüñ taḫtında ḫândur lâ-cerem
Var ise müşgîn ṣaçuñ bûyından itmişdür güẕer
K'ol hevâ ile ṣabâ ‘anber-feşândur lâ-cerem
Yıḳma göñlin ‘âşıḳuñ uyma raḳîbe dostum
Çün bilürsin sözi iblîsüñ yalandur lâ-cerem
Ḥamdü-lillah bezm-i ḥüsnüñde ḥabîbüm Mihrî'nüñ
Sâġar-ı çeşmi lebüñ ‘aksiyle ḳandur lâ-cerem

In English

1. From longing for you, my face has turned yellow, plainly visible, of course; from separation from you, the tears of my eyes flow on, of course.

2. My sigh has become my companion and the tears of my eyes my confidant; no one knows my state, for my pain is hidden, of course.

3. How could the heart not become a Ferhad in the wilderness of your love; the one it remembers night and day is you, who are sweet of tongue, of course. (Ferhad is the legendary lover who pierced mountains out of love for Şirin; the word "şîrîn" means "sweet" and also recalls the name of Şirin.)

4. O beloved, since love has become sultan on the throne of the heart, your command, of course, runs throughout the whole land of the soul, from end to end.

5. How should I not sacrifice my soul to that bow-browed one; for my breast, of course, is the target of the arrows of your glance.

6. O beloved, may this lover, whose heart is your servant, never be freed (released from servitude) from your door; for your image, of course, is the ruler on the throne of my heart.

7. If the morning breeze scatters ambergris, it is, of course, because it has passed over the scent of your musk-scented hair; it smells so because it carries that air (that desire).

8. My friend, do not wreck the lover's heart and do not heed the rival; for you know that the devil's word is a lie, of course. (Here the rival is likened to the devil.)

9. Praise be to God, my beloved, in the assembly of your beauty Mihrî's eye-cup is full of blood, of course, from the reflection of your lips. (The couplet can be read in two ways: the reflection of the red lips has dyed the eye red like a cup of wine; or the lover's eye is filled with bloody tears from weeping. In divan poetry wine and blood are often used in place of one another.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The one hundred and sixth ghazal (gazel) of the divan has nine couplets (beyit) and is written in the remel metre of the aruz (quantitative metre), in the pattern "Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilün". The redif (refrain word) is the word "lâ-cerem", of Arabic origin, meaning "of course, undoubtedly, inevitably". The rhyme is built on the sounds "-ân / -an" before the refrain (‘ayân, revân, nihân, zebân, revân, nişân, ḫân, feşân, yalan, ḳan). In the last two couplets the rhyme words "yalan" and "ḳan" carry no long vowel; this is a licence tolerated in divan poetry. Every line of the ghazal seals a claim with "lâ-cerem", so that the poem reads from start to finish as a series of categorical judgements. The ghazal appears in all four manuscripts; its eighth couplet is missing from manuscript F, and the word "ẕikri" in the third couplet appears as "fikri" in F and S. Nothing is known about whom or when it was written for.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal opens with the pain of separation. In the first couplet, longing showing in the face as pallor and separation in the eye as tears are given in two parallel lines; an equivalence is set up between "ḥasret / fürḳat" and "ṣûret / gözler". In the first line the words "zerd" (yellow) and "‘ayân" (plain, visible) say that the pain the lover tries to hide shows on her face. Yet in the second couplet the same lover says, "my pain is hidden, no one knows my state". Gülşen Kaya cites this couplet when she explains that where love is a companion, the lover has no intimate friend left but the sigh and the tears.

In the first and fourth couplets the word "revân" is used in two different senses: first of tears "flowing", then of the beloved's command being "in force". The rhyming of the same word with different meanings is an instance of cinas (punning on identical-sounding words). The fourth and sixth couplets rest on a common conceit that imagines the heart as a country and the beloved as the ruler on its throne: love is the "sulṭân" on the throne of the heart, the beloved's image is the "ḫân", and the soul is the "mülk" (realm) under that rule. Kaya mentions this notion, of the heart as a city or palace whose shah is the beloved, among the examples in the divan. In the sixth couplet there is a contrast (tezat) between "bende" (servant) and "âzâd" (freed); the lover does not want to be released from servitude and wishes to remain a servant at the beloved's door.

The third couplet alludes to the story of Ferhad and Şirin. Love is likened to a desert and the heart to the Ferhad who wanders in it. The phrase "şîrîn-zebân" (sweet of tongue) at the end of the line is a tevriye (double entendre), since it also calls to mind the name of Şirin, Ferhad's beloved. Kaya gives this couplet among the examples in which love is likened to a desert.

In the fifth couplet the beloved's brow is likened to a bow, her glance to an arrow and the lover's breast to a target; the words "kemân, oḳ, nişân" form a tenasüp (congruence of images). The seventh couplet takes up the conceit of the saba wind carrying the scent of the beloved's hair to the world. Here the word "hevâ" means both "air, wind" and "desire, whim"; the saba both carries the air of the beloved's hair and blows at her whim.

The eighth couplet likens the rival who comes between lover and beloved to the devil. Kaya gives this couplet as an example of the rival being compared to the devil who approaches in secret and whispers temptation. The last couplet closes with the conceits of the assembly and wine: the beloved's beauty is an assembly, and Mihrî's eye is a cup in it. That the cup turns red from the reflection of the lips calls to mind both wine and an eye bloodied by weeping; that the line beginning with "Ḥamdü-lillah" (Praise be to God) should arrive at this bitter end gives the couplet a slight irony.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Mehmet Arslan (ed.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları (Kültür Eserleri Dizisi 576), 2018, p. 107, Ghazal 106. ekitap.ktb.gov.tr

Academic studies

  • Gülşen Kaya, Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı'nın Tahlili, master's thesis, Fırat University Institute of Social Sciences, Elazığ 2010. openaccess.firat.edu.tr

Other sources

  • Didem Havlioğlu (ed.), "Ğazeliyyāt-ı Mihri-i Hāqīre", türkoloji-iran, 2007 (a different transliteration of the ghazal).

Online sources