Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Didi cânân terk ḳıl yolumda cân didüm be-çeşm
Didi çeşmüm ḫûnîdür tiz ol hemân didüm be-çeşm
Didi ebrû-yı kemânum atsa ġamzem tîrini
Sîneñi her dem aña eyle nişân didüm be-çeşm
Didi serv-i ḳaddimüñ gelse ḫayâli dîdeñe
Gözlerüñ yaşın revân eyle revân didüm be-çeşm
Didi la‘lüm yâdına cân meclisinde mâ-ḥażar
Nûş ḳıl dil sâġarından ṭolu ḳan didüm be-çeşm
Didi kim gel itlerümden yâd olma bir nefes
Āsitânum gûşesinde ṭut mekân didüm be-çeşm
Mihrî'ye bir bûse in‘âm it didüm dilber didi
Sen de gel şükrâne teslîm eyle cân didüm be-çeşm

In English

1. The beloved said, "Give up your life on my path"; I said, "On my eyes" (be-çeşm). She said, "My eye is a shedder of blood, be quick"; I said, "On my eyes." ("Be-çeşm" is Persian for "upon the eye"; it is used in the sense of "on my head, as you command".)

2. She said, "If my brow, like a bow, shoots the arrow of my glance, make your breast its target at every moment"; I said, "On my eyes."

3. She said, "If the image of my cypress-like stature comes to your eye, let your tears flow, flow on"; I said, "On my eyes."

4. She said, "In the assembly of the soul, in memory of my lips, drink blood in full from the cup of the heart, as whatever is at hand to serve (mâ-ḥażar)"; I said, "On my eyes." ("Mâ-ḥażar" is the offering of whatever is ready on the table; the red lip is likened to wine, and wine to blood.)

5. She said, "Come, do not be apart from my dogs for a single moment; take a place in a corner of my threshold"; I said, "On my eyes."

6. I said, "Grant Mihrî a kiss"; the beloved said, "You too, come, and as thanks for it surrender your life"; I said, "On my eyes."

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The one hundred and ninth ghazal (gazel) of the divan has six 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 phrase "didüm be-çeşm" ("I said, on my eyes"); the rhyme is built on the sounds "-ân / -an" before the refrain (cân, hemân, nişân, revân, ḳan, mekân, cân). That the word "cân" in the pen-name couplet (mahlas) repeats the rhyme of the opening couplet makes the ghazal close by returning to its starting point, the demand for a life. The poem appears in all four manuscripts; the second couplet is missing from manuscript F, and the word "ġamzem" (my gamze) in the same couplet appears as "ġamzeñ" (your gamze) in manuscripts M and S. Nothing is known about whom the poem was written for.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal is built from start to finish as a conversation. In every couplet the beloved asks for something and the lover accepts, saying "be-çeşm". This manner of reporting the exchange of two people with the pattern "she said, I said" is known in divan poetry as the art of sual ü cevap (question and answer). In Mihrî's ghazal the conversation turns into a one-way order of command and obedience: the beloved's demands grow heavier, while the lover's answer never changes. Sabiha Gemici, in her thesis on the sentence structure of the divan, lists the second couplet among the examples of nested compound sentences built with the verb "didi".

The beloved's demands pass in turn through the familiar conceits of divan poetry. In the first couplet the "ḫûnî" (blood-shedding, murderous) eye demands the lover's life. In the second, the images of the bow-like brow, the arrow-like glance and the breast as target form a tenasüp (congruence of images) among the words "kemân, tîr, nişân". Gülşen Kaya notes that the arrows of the gamze lodging in the lover's breast please the lover because they mean that the beloved looks at her, and she gives this couplet as an example. In the third couplet the cypress-like stature and the flowing tears are set side by side: the cypress tree grows by running water in divan poetry, so there is also a link between "serv" (cypress) and "revân" (flowing). Saying "revân" twice in a row lets the sound too convey the ceaseless flow of tears.

The fourth couplet uses the conceits of the assembly and wine. The beloved's "la‘l" (ruby) lip recalls wine; in memory of this lip the lover will drink blood, not wine, from the cup of the heart. In the fifth couplet the beloved tells the lover not to leave her dogs and to take a place in a corner of her threshold. In divan poetry, to be in the same place as the beloved's dogs is an honour for the lover; in this couplet it is the beloved herself who asks for it.

In the pen-name couplet the direction of the conversation changes. This time it is Mihrî who asks: she begs the beloved to grant a kiss. The beloved, for her part, asks as the price of that gift that she surrender her life in thanks. The ghazal thus returns to the command of the first couplet, "give up your life on my path", and the poet again says "be-çeşm". Gemici cites this couplet among the examples in Mihrî's divan in which the poet asks the beloved for a kiss. That the greatest price is demanded in return for a small favour lends a touch of mockery and a smile to the end of the ghazal.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Mehmet Arslan (ed.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları (Kültür Eserleri Dizisi 576), 2018, pp. 108-109, Ghazal 109. ekitap.ktb.gov.tr

Academic studies

  • Sabiha Gemici, Mihrî Hatun Divanı: Karşılaştırmalı Metin, Cümle Yapısı ve Cümle Türleri, doctoral thesis, Uludağ University, Balıkesir 1990.
  • 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