Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Vezin: Mefâ‘ilün Fe‘ilâtün Mefâ‘ilün Fe‘ilün

Nigâr ruḫlarını lâle-zâra beñzetdüm
Benefşe ṣaçlarını müşk-bâra beñzetdüm
Cemâli gülşenini gördüm ü didüm el-ḥaḳ
Şükûfe ile müzeyyen bahâra beñzetdüm
Çemende ḳâmetini gördüm ol gül-endâmuñ
Gözini nergis ü boyın çenâra beñzetdüm
Sefîne-i dili ġarḳ idicek gözüm yaşı
Ḥabîb dâmenini ben kenâra beñzetdüm
Dilinde şâm u seḥer Mihrî'nüñ budur ẕikri
Vefâsı yoḳ ṣanemi rûzgâra beñzetdüm

In English

1. I compared my beloved's cheeks to a tulip garden, and her violet-dark tresses to something that scatters musk (a musk-scented air).

2. I saw the rose garden of her beauty and said, "Truly, this is it": I compared her to a spring adorned with flowers.

3. I saw the stature of that rose-bodied one in the meadow; I compared her eye to the narcissus and her height to the plane tree. (In divan poetry the narcissus is the flower likened to the eye, and the plane tree and the cypress stand for a tall figure.)

4. When my tears were about to sink the ship of my heart, I compared the beloved's skirt-hem to the shore. (The tears are a sea and the heart a ship sinking in it; to cling to the beloved's hem is a rescue, like a ship reaching the shore.)

5. What Mihrî has on her tongue morning and evening is this: I compared that idol-like beauty, who has no faithfulness, to the wind (to fate). (Rûzgâr means both "wind" and "time" or "the turning of fortune"; neither stays still or remains loyal to anyone.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The hundred and sixteenth ghazal (gazel) of the divan has five couplets (beyit) and is composed in the müctess variety of aruz (quantitative metre), in the pattern "Mefâ‘ilün Fe‘ilâtün Mefâ‘ilün Fe‘ilün". Its redif (refrain word) is the verb "beñzetdüm" ("I compared"); the rhyme is built on the sound "-âr" that precedes it (lâle-zâr, müşk-bâr, bahâr, çenâr, kenâr, rûzgâr). The ghazal appears in all four manuscripts. Nothing is known about whom it was written for; however, as explained below, scholars have shown it to be a nazire (response poem) to a ghazal by Necâtî.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The redif also determines the subject of the ghazal. Each couplet ends with a comparison, and the poet states plainly that she is the one making it. In this way the poem, while describing the beloved's beauty, also puts a poet's work of producing words on display. In the first three couplets all the comparisons are drawn from the garden and from spring: the cheek is a tulip bed, the hair is violet and musk, the face is a spring adorned with flowers, the eye is a narcissus, the stature is a plane tree. These are among the best-known similes (teşbih) of divan poetry; made directly, without a particle of comparison, they build a strong congruence of images (tenasüp) through the gathering of garden words. The deep colour of the violet answers to the hair, the languid look of the narcissus to the eye, and the height of the plane tree to the beloved's stature.

In the fourth couplet the picture moves from the garden to the sea. The lover's tear is a swelling sea, her heart a ship about to sink in it, and the beloved's hem the shore where this ship can take refuge. Gülşen Kaya cites this couplet as the only example in which the heart is likened to a ship and the beloved's hem to a safe shore. Because "to hold on to the hem" is an idiom in Turkish meaning to take refuge in someone and ask for help, the comparison appeals not only to the eye but to the sense.

The closing couplet (makta) ties the string of praises to an unexpected point. What is on Mihrî's tongue as her "remembrance" (zikir) morning and evening is not the beloved's beauty but her faithlessness: the poet compares her to rûzgâr. The word means both the blowing wind and time, the turning of fortune; neither stays in one place or remains loyal to anyone. Kaya cites this couplet to show that the divan treats time as a force that separates the lover from the beloved and shows no fidelity, and that faithless beloveds are likened to time in this respect. Coming after the spring picture of the earlier couplets, this last comparison implies that spring, too, comes and goes, and gives the poem a slight tone of reproach.

Historical Context

The ghazal is a nazire to Necâtî's ghazal in the same metre, the same rhyme and the same redif, with the opening couplet "Gözümde ‘aks-i cemâlüñ bahâra beñzetdüm". Metin Hakverdioğlu, in his study comparing Mihrî's responses to Necâtî, prints the two ghazals side by side; Sabiha Gemici, in her 1990 thesis, likewise cites the two opening couplets together and shows that Mihrî took Necâtî as her model. Necâtî's ghazal too has comparisons to spring, to the wind of a musk-scented caravan, to a tulip garden and to a shore; seeing the dark shade of the beloved's down in the sea of beauty, Necâtî says he took it for the "shore of Necât", that is, the shore of deliverance, and with this phrase he alludes to his own pen name (mahlas). The ship-and-shore picture in Mihrî's fourth couplet shares the same rhyme word with that couplet but builds a different scene on it: in Necâtî the shore is a line seen in the sea of beauty, while in Mihrî it is the refuge of a heart about to sink.

The same redif is also found in the divan of Tâcîzâde Ca‘fer Çelebi, who belonged to the literary circle in Amasya in the same years as Mihrî. Sıtkı Nazik compares Ca‘fer Çelebi's ghazal opening "Yüzini bâġa ruḫın lâle-zâra beñzetdüm / Benefşe zülfini ebr-i bahâra beñzetdüm" with Mihrî's and notes that the two opening couplets are largely alike. According to Nazik, in the second couplets Mihrî draws a colourful picture by likening the beloved's face to a spring adorned with flowers, while Ca‘fer Çelebi builds his couplet on contrasts by likening the cheek to day and the hair to night. Which poem was written first is not known; these ghazals, meeting on the same ground, show how Necâtî's poem became a shared standard among the poets of the period.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Mehmet Arslan (ed.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları (Kültür Eserleri Dizisi 576), 2018, p. 112, Ghazal 116 (F 59a, M 82b, S 61a, Ü 55a). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr

Academic studies

  • Metin Hakverdioğlu, "Mihrî Hâtun'un Necâtî Bey'in Şiirlerine Nazîreleri", Turkish Studies 4/2 (Winter 2009), pp. 522-551 (comparison: Necâtî CCCLXX / Mihrî CXX, numbered as in the author's own edition, p. 538), doi:10.7827/TurkishStudies.638.
  • Sabiha Gemici, Mihrî Hatun Divanı: Karşılaştırmalı Metin, Cümle Yapısı ve Cümle Türleri, PhD thesis, Uludağ Üniversitesi, Balıkesir 1990, p. 32. https://archive.org/details/MihriHatunDivann
  • 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 (esp. p. 145). https://isamveri.org/pdfdrg/G00226/2017/2017_NAZIKS.pdf
  • Gülşen Kaya, Mihrî Hâtun Divânı'nın Tahlili, MA thesis, Fırat Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Elazığ 2010, pp. 213, 262. openaccess.firat.edu.tr

Online sources