Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Vezin: Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilün

Nice bir hecrüñle idem âhı çoḳlar sevdügüm
Āhum odı yaḳdı mihr ü mâhı çoḳlar sevdügüm
Dürlü dürlü dilberâ cevr ü cefâñ ile beni
Ḳaṣduñ öldürmek midür billâhi çoḳlar sevdügüm
Her ne yüzden cevr iderseñ ben ḫo yüz döndürmezem
Sen daḫi ḥâżır göre Allâh'ı çoḳlar sevdügüm
Dostum luṭf eylegil aġyâr ile seyr eyleme
Dîvüñ olmasun melek hem-râhı çoḳlar sevdügüm
Hey ḥaẕer ḳıl dostum Mihrî'nüñ âhından ṣaḳın
Āhı âhenden geçer vallâhi çoḳlar sevdügüm

In English

1. O my dearly beloved, how long must I sigh because of your separation? The fire of my sigh has burned both the sun and the moon.

2. O heart-stealing beauty, O my dearly beloved, tell me for God's sake: is it your intention to kill me with your manifold cruelty and torment?

3. Whichever way you wrong me, I will still not turn my face from you; and you, too, keep God present and watching (remember that He sees everything), O my dearly beloved.

4. My friend, be kind and do not stroll about with strangers (rivals); O my dearly beloved, may the angel's travelling companion not be a dîv. (The beloved is likened to an angel, the rival to the dîv, a demon or giant.)

5. Beware, my friend, and take care to fear Mihrî's sigh; by God, her sigh passes through iron, O my dearly beloved.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The hundred and seventeenth ghazal (gazel) of the divan has five couplets (beyit) and is composed in the remel metre of aruz (quantitative metre), in the pattern "Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilün". Its redif (refrain word) is the phrase "-ı çoḳlar sevdügüm" ("my dearly beloved"); the rhyme is built on the sound "-âh" (âh, mâh, billâh, Allâh, hem-râh, vallâh). What is striking is that three of the five rhyme words are oaths and invocations: "billâhi", "Allâh'ı", "vallâhi". This choice carries the pleading, swearing voice of the ghazal, close to spoken language, all the way into the rhyme. The redif "çoḳlar sevdügüm" ("my dearly beloved") is also an everyday term of affection. The ghazal appears in all four manuscripts. Nothing is known about whom it was written for.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The main subject of the ghazal is the lover's sigh. In divan poetry the sigh (âh) is imagined as a fiery breath rising from a burning heart; its smoke climbs to the sky and its sparks set the heavenly bodies alight. In the opening couplet (matla) Mihrî takes this idea to its extreme: the fire of her sigh has burned the sun and the moon. "Mihr ü mâh" (sun and moon) are named together to form a congruence of images (tenasüp), and the line is also a clear example of hyperbole. Gülşen Kaya cites this couplet among the examples in which the lover's sigh is imagined as a powerful flame that burns the wheel of the heavens, the moon, the sun and even hell. That the word "mihr" means "love" as well as "sun", and is the same word as the poet's own pen name (mahlas), adds a further echo to the opening couplet.

The second and third couplets are a direct reckoning with the beloved. The lover asks whether the aim of the beloved's manifold cruelties is to kill her, and then says that whatever happens she will not turn away. In the third couplet there is a play on the two meanings of the word "yüz" between "ne yüzden" and "yüz döndürmezem": in the first it means "from which side, for which reason", in the second "face". In the second line of the couplet the lover reminds the beloved that God sees everything, a gentle warning implying that one day an account will be asked for the cruelty.

The fourth couplet brings the rival onto the stage. The beloved is likened to an angel and the rival to the dîv, that is, a giant or demon. Kaya notes that the couplet alludes to the fact that the dîv, the devil, was once an angel, and that attention is drawn to how far apart the two now stand. The opposition (tezat) between angel and dîv presents the beloved's strolling with the rival as an intolerable incongruity for the lover.

The closing couplet (makta) presents the sigh this time as a threat. Mihrî, speaking of herself in the third person, warns the beloved: her sigh passes through iron. Here there is a pun (cinas) between "âh" and "âhen" (iron), based on similarity of sound. Kaya cites this couplet, noting that the effect of the sigh is stressed by saying that it passes even through iron. The ghazal thus closes with the sigh that burned the heavens in the opening couplet turning, in the makta, into a curse-like power that may be directed at the beloved herself.

In the table in which Sıtkı Nazik lists the redifs shared by the divans of Mihrî and Tâcîzâde Ca‘fer Çelebi, he sets the redif of this ghazal against the redif "benüm çok sevdügüm" in one of Ca‘fer Çelebi's murabbas. No direct nazire relationship between the two poems is established; the table shows only that this expression of affection was used as a redif among the Amasya 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, pp. 112-113, Ghazal 117 (F 59a, M 83b, S 61a, Ü 55a). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr

Academic studies

  • Gülşen Kaya, Mihrî Hâtun Divânı'nın Tahlili, MA thesis, Fırat Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Elazığ 2010, pp. 10, 227, 273. openaccess.firat.edu.tr
  • 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 (table of shared redifs, p. 140). https://isamveri.org/pdfdrg/G00226/2017/2017_NAZIKS.pdf

Online sources