Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilün

Gülşene meyl itmezem gül gibi yârüm var iken
Bülbüli gûş itmezem âh ile zârum var iken
Serve baş indürmezem ṭûbâya boynum egmezem
Müntehâ ḳaddüñ gibi ra‘nâ çenârum var iken
Cân u dil naḳdini cânân yolına ḫarc eyledüm
Ḫoş ṣafâ sürdüm cihânda elde varum var iken
Sînemüñ gencînesinden eksük olmaz la‘l ü dür
Müflis olmaz dil ne ġam bu eşk-bârum var iken
Neylerem ben ‘izz ü câhı yâ cihânuñ rif‘atın
İtleriyle işiginde i‘tibârum var iken
Çalmış idüm ṭaşa ben nâmûs u ‘ârum şîşesin
‘Ālem içre ġayretüm ḫalḳ içre ‘ârum var iken
Mihrî'yi bî-iḫtiyâr itmişdüñ ey dildâr-ı men
Başda ‘aḳlum u elümde iḫtiyârum var iken

In English

1. I will not incline toward the rose garden when I have a beloved like the rose; I will not listen to the nightingale when I have my own sighs and laments. (In divan poetry the nightingale is the bird that falls in love with the rose and moans; the lover needs no nightingale's voice, because her own lament is enough.)

2. I will not bow my head to the cypress, nor bend my neck to the Tuba tree, when I have a graceful plane tree, lovely as your stature, high as the Sidrat al-Muntaha. (The cypress is likened to the beloved's stature because it is tall and straight; Tuba and Sidra are trees of Paradise. Ra‘nâ means beautiful and graceful.)

3. I spent the coin of soul and heart on the beloved's road; I lived in pleasant ease in the world, when I had what I owned in hand. (The couplet can be read in two ways: while I had means in my hand, I enjoyed the pleasure of spending them on the beloved's road; or the days when I spent what I had were the only good days in the world.)

4. Rubies and pearls never run short in the treasury of my breast; the heart does not go bankrupt, so what is the grief, when I have these ever-weeping eyes. (Bloody tears are likened to rubies, white tears to pearls. The lover's tears are her inexhaustible wealth.)

5. What would I do with glory, honour, rank or the world's loftiness, when I have standing at the beloved's door, among her dogs? (The dogs at the beloved's door are, in divan poetry, an enviable sign of being close to that door.)

6. I had smashed the flask of honour and shame against a stone, when my sense of zeal in the world and my shame before the people were still in place. (To smash a flask against a stone is to break it and throw it away. The lover says that for the sake of love she gave up her fear of society's reproach while it still lived within her.)

7. O my beloved who took my heart, you had left Mihrî without will, when my reason was in my head and my will was in my hand. (Bî-ihtiyâr means without control, one who has lost her will. "Dildâr-ı men" is a Persian form of address: my beloved.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The hundred and twenty-ninth ghazal of the Divan has seven couplets and is written in the remel metre of the aruz, in the pattern "Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilün". Its redif (refrain word) is "var iken" (while I have); the rhyme rests on the sound "-ârum" in the words "yârüm, zârum, çenârum, varum, eşk-bârum, i‘tibârum, ‘ârum, iḫtiyârum". The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet. The ghazal is found only in the Istanbul University (Ü) manuscript. The hundred and twenty-eighth ghazal, which comes directly before it in the Divan, is also written in the same metre and with the redif "var iken"; Sıtkı Nazik's table of refrains shows this redif only in these two ghazals. There is no record of whom it was written for.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

Like the previous ghazal, this poem is built on the idea "I have no need of the other when I have this", but here the lover's own state comes forward more than the beloved's beauty. In the first couplet a familiar congruence of images (tenasüp) is formed with the words rose garden, rose and nightingale: because the beloved is the rose there is no need for the garden, and because the lover has her own lament there is no need for the nightingale. The second couplet repeats the images of Tuba and Sidra from the previous ghazal and adds the cypress and the plane tree to them. Gülşen Kaya gives this couplet as an example in which the inverted stance of Tuba, the unbending nature of the cypress and the loftiness of the Sidra are described together.

The fourth couplet rests on a metaphor (istiare) in which tears are thought of as wealth. Through this couplet Kaya explains that the heart cannot go bankrupt, because the treasury of the breast is filled with the image of the beloved's lips and teeth and with the lover's tears. Ruby and pearl are also the familiar counterparts of red lips and white teeth; the words "treasury", "bankrupt" and "coin" form a congruence of images drawn from the field of trade. The phrase "the coin of soul and heart" in the third couplet is tied to the same field.

In the fifth couplet the lover does not exchange the world's esteem for a place among the dogs at the beloved's door. Kaya explains through this couplet that in the Divan the beloved's door is full of dogs and that the lover wants to befriend these dogs at that door as the greatest rank on earth. The sixth couplet reuses the image of the "flask of shame" (şîşe-i ‘âr) from the hundred and twenty-seventh ghazal of the Divan; here the flask of shame has been smashed against a stone and broken. The words "zeal" and "shame" express together the gaze of society and a person's sense of honour. In the last couplet there is a contrast between the words "bî-iḫtiyâr" and "iḫtiyâr": the poet says that the beloved left her without will while her reason and will were intact.

As in the previous ghazal, there is no expression in this poem that shows the poet to be a woman; the lover speaks in the common voice of the divan tradition. Even so, "smashing the flask of honour and shame against a stone" carries a different weight when read from the pen of a woman poet, considering how much the biographical anthologies (tezkire) say about Mihrî's chastity; yet no connection has been drawn in the sources between this couplet and Mihrî's life.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Academic studies

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