Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Vezin: Mef‘ûlü Mefâ‘îlü Mefâ‘îlü Fa‘ûlün

‘Aşḳuñ meyini ele alayın mı ne dirsin
Ġayret kilimin ṣuya ṣalayın mı ne dirsin
Dil ṣaḳladıġı şîşe-i ‘ârı ṭaşa cânâ
Hengâme-i ‘aşḳuñda çalayın mı ne dirsin
Ḳanlu yaşum ey dost senüñ râh-ı ġamuñda
Dil zevraḳı ġarḳ oldı ṭalayın mı ne dirsin
Ṭutmazsañ elim luṭfuñ ile ḳaldum ayaḳda
Cânâ demidür yoḫsa öleyin mi ne dirsin
Miḥrâb-ı ḳaşuñ ṭâḳı durur ḳıble-i cânum
Dil ḳıblesine secde ḳılayın mı ne dirsin
Eksük ḳomaduñ Mihrî'ye sen cevr ü cefâda
Bir yâr-ı vefâ-dârı bulayın mı ne dirsin

In English

1. Shall I take the wine of your love in my hand, what do you say? Shall I throw my kilim of gayret into the water, what do you say? (Gayret in the old language means the sense of honour and self-respect, also jealousy. To throw one's kilim into the water can be read as to give up what one owns; the poet asks whether to put aside concern for honour for the sake of love.)

2. O beloved, the bottle of shame that my heart has kept and guarded, shall I dash it against the stone in the tumult of your love, what do you say? (To dash a bottle against a stone is to smash it and throw it away. The lover dares to break the fear of shame and reproach, called âr, and to make her love known.)

3. O friend, on the road of your grief, in my bloody tears, the boat of my heart has sunk; shall I dive in, what do you say? (The tears are likened to a sea and the heart to a boat sinking in it; "to dive" means both to plunge into water and to lose oneself.)

4. If you do not take my hand with your kindness, I am left standing on my feet; O beloved, now is the time, or else shall I die, what do you say? (To be left "on one's feet" means to be helpless and without aid. There is a play on words between "to take the hand" and "to be left on one's feet".)

5. The arch of your brow is like a mihrab and is the qibla of my soul; shall I prostrate myself to the qibla of the heart, what do you say? (The mihrab is the arched niche in a mosque that shows the direction of the qibla. The curved brow is likened to the mihrab, and the beloved's face to the qibla toward which the lover turns.)

6. You have left nothing lacking in cruelty and torment toward Mihrî; shall I find a faithful beloved, what do you say?

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The hundred and twenty-seventh ghazal (gazel) of the divan has six couplets (beyit) and is composed in the hezec metre of aruz (quantitative metre), in the pattern "Mef‘ûlü Mefâ‘îlü Mefâ‘îlü Fa‘ûlün". The redif (refrain word) is the phrase "mı ne dirsin" ("what do you say?"); the rhyme is the sound "-l" and the optative suffix following it in the words "alayın, ṣalayın, çalayın, ṭalayın, öleyin, ḳılayın, bulayın". The pen name (mahlas) occurs in the last couplet. The ghazal is found in all four manuscripts; the differences between manuscripts consist of spelling variants such as "Ṭutmazsañ / Dutmazsañ" and the difference "yâr-ı vefâ-dâr / yâr u vefâ-dâr" in the last couplet. In the table in which Sıtkı Nazik extracts the redifs in Mihrî's divan, the redif "mı ne dirsin" is seen only in this ghazal. There is no record of whom it was written for.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

All the couplets of the poem are built as questions directed to the beloved, and the redif "ne dirsin" gives the ghazal an air of consultation, even of mild reproach. In each couplet the lover asks whether to take a great step: to drink the wine of love, to give up her honour, to dive into the sea of tears, to die, to prostrate herself, and at the end to look for another beloved. These questions in fact expect no answer; they show the beloved's indifference and the lover's helplessness. The question at the end, "shall I find a faithful beloved", is a reproach that reverses the submission of the earlier couplets and ties the end of the ghazal to a coquettish threat.

The first two couplets are a sequence built from idioms. Gülşen Kaya cites the phrase "suya salmak" in the second line of the first couplet among the examples in which water is used in idioms in the divan. In the second couplet the compound "şîşe-i ‘âr" (the bottle of shame) conveys a value that must be guarded but is easily broken; Kaya notes that the word "hengâme", meaning war and brawl, is used in the divan only in this couplet, in the compound "hengâme-i ‘aşk". In the third couplet the sea of tears and the boat of the heart (dil zevrakı) form a metaphor (istiare); Kaya shows that in the divan the boat of the heart is likened to a stormy sea in which it sinks and surfaces.

The fifth couplet rests on a known simile that likens the beloved's brow to the mihrab. Kaya gives this couplet in two separate places, under the likening of the curved brow to the mihrab and under the mention of the heart as qibla. The words mihrab, qibla and prostration build a congruence of images (tenasüp) taken from the field of worship. In the fourth couplet the words "el" ("hand") and "ayak" ("foot") are set against each other: in saying "if you do not take my hand I am left on my feet", the poet brings forward the sense "to be left helpless" of the idiom "ayakta kalmak" by playing on the two limbs of the human body.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Academic studies

Online sources