Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilün

Gün yüzüñ oldı gözümden ki nihân iki gözüm
Ḳarañu oldı baña işbu cihân iki gözüm
Dimedüñ bu daḫi âşüftelerümden biridür
Sürinürem yoluña bunca zamân iki gözüm
Bâġ-ı ḥüsnüñde görüp müdde‘iyî dîdelerüm
Oldı ḳanlu yaş ile şâd-revân iki gözüm
Gözümüñ ṣuları her cânibe bâġı ṭolanur
Her ḳaçan seyr idesin serv-i revân iki gözüm
Gözüme nûr irişsün yine göñlüme sürûr
Göreyüm gün yüzüñi bir dem amân iki gözüm
Ḫûb iken eyle vefâ yoluña cânlar virene
Böyle ḳalmaz bu güzellik de hemân iki gözüm
Baña raḥm itse gerek yâr didüm aġyâra
Mihrî'yi eyleme billâh yalan iki gözüm

In English

1. Since your sun-like face has been hidden from my eye, this world has become dark to me, my two eyes. ("İki gözüm" ("my two eyes") is a form of address to the beloved meaning "light of my eyes, my dear".)

2. For so long I have been crawling on your path, my two eyes; not once did you say, "This one too is one of my lovers driven out of their mind by love."

3. Seeing the rival in the garden of your beauty, my eyes turned, with bloody tears, into fountains, my two eyes. (Here "iki gözüm" is both an address and a description of the poet's own two eyes: the eyes that shed tears are likened to the fountain in a garden.)

4. O you of cypress stature who walk with a swaying gait, my two eyes, whenever you go out to stroll in the garden, the waters of my eyes also go about the garden on every side. (The lover waters the garden where the beloved walks with her tears; tears are likened to the water running in garden channels.)

5. May light reach my eye again and joy my heart; let me see your sun-like face for a single moment, for mercy's sake, my two eyes.

6. While you are beautiful, show faithfulness to those who give their lives on your path, my two eyes; this beauty too will not stay like this, it will pass.

7. I said to the others (the rivals), "My beloved will surely take pity on me"; for God's sake, do not make Mihrî a liar, my two eyes.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The one hundred and fourteenth ghazal (gazel) of the divan has seven couplets (beyit) and is written in the remel metre of the aruz (quantitative metre), in the pattern "Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilün". Its redif (refrain word) is the phrase "iki gözüm"; the rhyme is built on the sound "-ân" that precedes it (nihân, cihân, zamân, şâd-revân, revân, amân, hemân). In the closing couplet (makta) the word "yalan" stands in the place of the rhyme; this word, carrying a short "a" in place of the long "â", completes the rhyme loosely in sound. The ghazal appears only in manuscript Ü and is in the section of the letter mîm. Nothing is known about whom it was written for.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The weight of the ghazal is gathered in the refrain. "İki gözüm" is, in older Turkish, a warm form of address said to a beloved, a child or someone close, in the sense of "apple of my eye, my dear"; by repeating this address in every couplet, Mihrî gives the poem the tone of a supplication. Yet the same words are also directly connected to the pain of looking and being unable to see, which is the subject of the ghazal. In the first couplet, when the beloved's sun-like face is lost to the eye, the world goes dark; in the fifth, the poet asks to see that face for a moment and for light to come to her eye again. Thus "iki gözüm", used as an address, also carries within the poem the meaning of real eyes, the eyes that want to see and that weep. This double meaning is clearest in the third couplet: the eyes that see the rival in the beloved's "garden of beauty" shed bloody tears and turn into a şadırvan, that is, a pool with a fountain. Here the refrain both addresses the beloved and points to the two eyes that are the subject of the sentence; it is a fine example, placed in the refrain, of the tevriye (double entendre) that divan poetry loves.

The garden image continues in the fourth couplet. The beloved is called "serv-i revân", the walking cypress; the cypress corresponds in divan poetry to a tall and upright stature. As the beloved strolls in the garden, the lover's tears also flow around every part of it. Garden, cypress, şadırvan and water are used together to form a tenasüp (congruence of images), and tears are tied to garden waters to draw a picture of hyperbole. In the second couplet the lover is a devotee who "crawls" on the beloved's path; Gülşen Kaya cites this couplet among the examples of the type of lover who becomes dust on the beloved's path and whose eye sees no one but her.

The sixth couplet is the most striking place in the ghazal as thought. The poet reminds the beloved that beauty is transient and asks her for faithfulness for that reason: beauty "does not stay like this". This warning, often met in divan poetry, is made both as advice to the beloved and as a veiled reproach. In the makta, Mihrî names herself and ties her words to an oath. She had boasted to the rivals, "The beloved will surely show mercy to me", and now begs the beloved, "billâh" (by God), not to let these words come to nothing and not to leave her in the position of a liar. The poem thus closes between a boast and a plea; the lover's honour too is tied to the answer the beloved will give.

Bibliography

  • Mehmet Arslan (ed.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları (Kültür Eserleri Dizisi 576), 2018, p. 111, Ghazal 114 (Ü 54b). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr
  • Gülşen Kaya, Mihrî Hâtun Divânı'nın Tahlili, master's thesis, Fırat University Institute of Social Sciences, Elazığ 2010, p. 198. openaccess.firat.edu.tr