Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mef‘ûlü Fâ‘ilâtü Mefâ‘îlü Fâ‘ilün

Gördüm yüzüñi âh ile efġândan el yudum
Ṣordum lebüñi çeşme-i ḥayvândan el yudum
Gözüm göreli sidre ḳadüñ müntehâsını
Cân gülşeninde serv-i ḫırâmândan el yudum
Ġavvâṣ olalı ol ṣanemüñ ‘aşḳı baḥrine
Baḥr-i muḥîṭe baḳmadum ‘ummândan el yudum
La‘l-i lebüñle dişlerüñüñ vaṣfın işidüp
Ḥaḳḳâ budur ki dürr ile mercândan el yudum
Öldürmesün iñen daḫi ġamzeñ di Mihrî'yi
Ben ḫûnî gözlerüñ göreli cândan el yudum

In English

1. I saw your face and washed my hands of sighing and lament (gave them up); I asked about your lips and washed my hands of the spring of the water of life. ("El yumak", literally to wash the hands, means to give something up entirely. The water of life is the legendary water whose drinker was believed to become immortal.)

2. Since my eye saw the farthest limit of your stature, like the Sidra tree, I washed my hands of the swaying cypress in the rose garden of the soul. (Sidretü'l-müntehâ is the tree believed to stand at the highest place in the heavens.)

3. Since I became a diver in the sea of love for that idol-like beauty, I have not looked at the great ocean; I washed my hands of the vast sea.

4. Hearing the description of your ruby-red lips and your teeth, truly, I washed my hands of pearls and of coral as well.

5. Tell your gamze not to kill Mihrî any more; I, for my part, since I saw your blood-shedding eyes, have washed my hands of life. ("İñen" in Old Anatolian Turkish means "very, greatly, exceedingly"; Havlioğlu's text reads it as "igen".)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The one hundred and thirteenth ghazal (gazel) of the divan has five couplets (beyit) and is written in the muzâri metre of the aruz (quantitative metre), in the pattern "Mef‘ûlü Fâ‘ilâtü Mefâ‘îlü Fâ‘ilün". The redif (refrain word) is the phrase "-dan el yudum" ("I washed my hands of ..."); the rhyme is built on the sound "-ân" before the refrain (efġân, ḥayvân, ḫırâmân, ‘ummân, mercân, cân). The idiom "el yumak" in the refrain means to wash one's hands and withdraw from a matter, to give something up completely. In every couplet the lover gives up something that has lost its value in the face of the beloved's beauty. The poem appears only in manuscripts M and Ü of the four used by Arslan. The word "baḳmadum" in the third couplet appears in manuscript Ü as "baḳmadum u"; in the text published by Didem Havlioğlu, the line reads "Baḥr-i muḥîte baḳdum u ‘ummândan el yudum" (I looked at the ocean and washed my hands of the vast sea). The word "cândan" in the last line is also given in Havlioğlu's text corrected to "(ḳ)andan". Nothing is known about whom the poem was written for or on what occasion.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The whole ghazal is built on a single thought: one who has seen the beloved's beauty gives up everything held precious in the world. In every couplet an element of the beloved's beauty is compared with something to which divan poetry likens it, and the thing it is likened to is left behind. The lip surpasses the water of life, the stature the cypress and the Sidra tree, the sea of love the ocean, the lips and teeth the pearl and the coral. Preferring the thing likened to that to which it is likened is a manner of expression known as teşbih-i tafdîl (the simile of preference). Sıtkı Nazik notes that in this ghazal the poet willingly experiences a fragility and takes up an attitude of renunciation; according to Nazik, the poet stresses that before the beloved's lip, stature and teeth, the water of life, the swaying cypress, the pearl and the coral cannot be preferred.

The second couplet carries the densest allusion of the ghazal. Although the words "Sidre" and "müntehâ" are used separately, when read together they recall Sidretü'l-müntehâ, the tree at the very edge of the heavens that the Prophet reached on the night of the Miraç (Ascension). When the beloved's stature is likened to the loftiness of this tree, the cypress swaying in the garden of the soul loses its importance. Gülşen Kaya notes that Tûbâ and Sidra, as trees of paradise, are symbols of perfection, but that even these trees fall into the shade when compared with the beloved's stature, and she gives this couplet as an example.

In the third couplet love is likened to a sea and the lover to a diver searching for pearls in it. The tenasüp (congruence of images) among "ġavvâṣ, baḥr, baḥr-i muḥîṭ, ‘ummân" (diver, sea, ocean, vast sea) is plain. Kaya gives this couplet as an example of love being thought of as a beautiful and endless sea with tear-pearls in it. The word "ṣanem" (idol) is used in divan poetry of a beloved so striking in her beauty that she might be worshipped.

In the fourth couplet the beloved's lip is likened to the ruby and, by implication, to coral, and her teeth to pearls. The lip is mentioned first, then the teeth; in the second line pearl (the teeth) comes first, then coral (the lip). Giving in the second line the counterparts of the things listed in the first is the art of leff ü neşr; here the reversal of the order is an example of the mixed (müşevveş) kind of this art. Kaya cites this couplet when she explains that the teeth are likened to pearls for their brightness and colour, and the mouth to a sea or a box that holds these jewels.

The pen-name couplet (mahlas) carries the thought of the ghazal to its furthest point. Since she saw the beloved's blood-shedding eyes, the lover has given up even her life; so the beloved's gaze need not kill her once more. The link between "killing" and "washing one's hands of life" adds a bitter witticism to the couplet. As Nazik notes, showing the face as the element of beauty that gladdens the heart and the eyes as the element that kills sets up a correspondence between the first and the last couplet: the lover who saw the face gave up sighs and laments, and the lover who saw the eyes gave up life.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Mehmet Arslan (ed.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları (Kültür Eserleri Dizisi 576), 2018, pp. 110-111, Ghazal 113. ekitap.ktb.gov.tr

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.
  • 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