Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Geldi çün ġarrâ ġazeller bize ol cânândan
‘Īsi-veş irdi nefes biz mürde cisme cândan
Oldı şîrîn la‘linüñ Ferhâd-ı dil âşüftesi
Geçiser cân u cihândan geçmeyiser ândan
Fürḳatüñden ḳâmetüm ḥalḳ'itmişem ḫâtem gibi
Başuma seng-i melâmet almışam mercândan
Ruḫlaruñ gülzârına irdükçe cânâ bâd-ı ṣubḥ
‘Ālemi ḫoş-bû ṭutar ol sünbül ü reyḥândan
Göreli kûyuñda cânum sen güzeller şâhını
Ḳalmadı Rıḍvân'a meylüm geçmişem ġılmândan
Şübhesüz nâdân u ebter cilf ü bî-idrâkdur
Ehl-i şi‘r içre seni yeg görmeyen Selmân'dan
Sen yalandan Ḫâtemî ‘âşıḳ geçersin Mihrî'ye
S̱ümme vallâhi seni Mihrî sever oġlandan

In English

1. When radiant, beautiful ghazals came to us from that beloved, a breath like Jesus's reached our dead body, a breath full of life. (Garrâ means bright and distinguished. Jesus is believed to have raised the dead with his breath; the poems that arrived have given the poet life again.)

2. The heart became the Farhad of your sweet ruby lips, a distracted madman for them; he will give up soul and world, but he will not give up that. ("Şîrîn" means both sweet and the name of Shirin, Farhad's beloved. Ruby (la‘l) stands for the red lip.)

3. Because of your separation I have bent my stature into a ring, like a signet ring; on my head I have taken stones of reproach instead of coral. (Hâtem means a ring. A ring has a stone at its head; on the lover's head there are not precious stones like coral but the people's stones of blame. The word "ḫâtem", ring, also recalls the pen name Hâtemî, mentioned in the last couplet.)

4. O beloved, whenever the morning breeze reaches the rose garden of your cheeks, it fills the whole world with the fragrance of that hyacinth and basil. (The hyacinth is the beloved's hair, the basil the fine down on her cheek; the morning breeze carries this scent to the world.)

5. My soul, since I saw you in your quarter as the king of the beautiful, I have no inclination left for Ridwan, the keeper of Paradise, and I have given up the serving youths of Paradise as well. (Ridwan is the angel who guards the gate of Paradise; the ghilman are the young men who serve there. The beloved's quarter is held superior to Paradise.)

6. Without doubt, whoever among the poets does not see you as better than Salman is ignorant, base, coarse and without understanding. (Salman is the fourteenth-century Persian poet Salman-i Savaji, a master taken as a model for his qasidas. Ebter means cut off, without issue, ill-fated.)

7. You, Hâtemî, pretend to be in love with Mihrî; by God, Mihrî loves you more than she loves a boy. (The couplet is a playful reproach. In divan poetry "oğlan" often means the young male beloved; while finding Hâtemî's love feigned, Mihrî says that her own love is greater than the love felt for any beloved. The couplet can be read in two ways: "Mihrî loves you more than she loves a young man", or "Mihrî loves you more than a young man would love you".)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The hundred and thirtieth 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". The rhyme rests on the sound "-ân" in the words "cânân, cân, ân, mercân, reyḥân, ġılmân, Selmân, oġlan", and the redif (refrain word) on the suffix "-dan" added to them. The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet, this time together with the pen name of the person addressed. The ghazal is found in the Ankara (M) and Istanbul University (Ü) manuscripts. One of the manuscript differences is the reading "ben" in Ü in place of "biz" in the first couplet; in Âşık Çelebi's biographical anthology (tezkire), the last couplet appears as "Sen yalandan Ḫâtemî ‘âşıḳ geçerdüñ Mihrî'ye / S̱ümme vallâhi seni Mihrî sever oġlandan", that is, with "geçerdün" (you used to pose) in place of "geçersin".

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The poem opens with ghazals coming from a beloved and bringing the poet back to life as if from the dead. The allusion to Jesus's breath that raises the dead is often used in divan poetry for the beloved's word or lip; here, however, what gives life is the poems the beloved has sent. The following couplets proceed with familiar motifs: the second couplet gives Farhad and Shirin, the third the stature bent double by separation, the fourth the scent the morning breeze brings from the beloved. Gülşen Kaya cites the third couplet as an example in which the lover is bent double with separation and the stones of blame are the ornament on her head. In this couplet the words ring (ḫâtem), stone (seng) and coral form a congruence of images (tenasüp): the body bent into a ring is a signet ring, but the stone of the ring is not coral but a stone of reproach. Since the person addressed in the last couplet is named "Ḫâtemî", it may also be thought that the word "ḫâtem" in the third couplet was chosen as a hint at this pen name; the sources offer no comment on this.

The sixth couplet changes the direction of the poem. It is no longer the beloved's beauty but her poetry that is praised: anyone among poets who does not see her above Salman-i Savaji is ignorant. Kaya notes that in a qasida written to Prince Ahmed, Mihrî likens herself to Salman, while in this ghazal, praising Hâtemî's poetry, she says that whoever does not rank him above Salman is ignorant. Praising the beloved for her poetry shows plainly that the ghazal was written from one poet to another. The last couplet moves from serious praise to banter: the poet, swearing "S̱ümme vallâhi", calls the addressee's love false and claims that her own love is the more genuine. In this couplet the speech comes close to the language of the witty exchanges in gatherings, where two poets tease one another.

Historical Context

The ghazal is one of the few poems of Mihrî directly linked to the accounts of her life. Hâtemî is the pen name of Müeyyedzâde Abdurrahman Çelebi of Amasya. A scholar who was a companion in conversation to Bayezid II and wrote poems in Arabic, Persian and Turkish, he later rose as far as the office of kazasker (chief military judge) and died in 922/1516. Necâtî compiled his Divan at his urging. In the entry on Mihrî in Meşâ‘irü'ş-Şu‘arâ, Âşık Çelebi relates that in their youth Müeyyedzâde, who was also from Amasya, and Mihrî first formed an attachment of the heart, and that this later turned into a mutual affection. According to him, years later, when Müeyyedzâde was kazasker, Mihrî would visit him from time to time; Müeyyedzâde would recall the old affair by allusion and insinuation. Mihrî then wrote this couplet and sent it to him. In his entry in the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, Erünsal also notes that Âşık Çelebi speaks of an emotional closeness between these two poets.

The tezkire quotes the couplet on its own, not as the whole ghazal, and gives the reading "geçerdün" in place of the Divan's "geçersin". This past tense fits the story told: the words "you used to pose as my lover, falsely" can be read as a reproach answering an old memory of youth years later. Kaya, however, treats the whole ghazal as a poem clearly written to Hâtemî, and considers it likely that the two poets sent poems to each other because they lived in the same circle. The phrase "radiant ghazals coming from the beloved" in the first couplet also supports this possibility.

This account has also been used to estimate Mihrî's date of birth. Since Hâtemî is known to have been born in 860/1455-56, Mehmet Arslan places the birth of Mihrî, who is accepted as his contemporary and as having grown up with him, between 860/1455-56 and 865/1460-61. In her thesis Sabiha Gemici also cites this couplet as evidence in which Mihrî herself confirms the affection between them. Enes İlhan describes Mihrî as a poet who did not shrink from attending gatherings in which men were in the majority and who did not hold back from naming in her poems people about whom love gossip had arisen, such as İskender Çelebi and Hâtemî; this ghazal is one of the clearest examples of what he says. The authors of the tezkires, for their part, while speaking of Mihrî's beauty and her affairs of the heart, also record that no one doubted her chastity. The story behind the couplet should therefore be read as a tezkire account.

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