Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mefâ‘îlün Mefâ‘îlün Mefâ‘îlün Mefâ‘îlün

Bugün bir ġonca-fem gördüm didüm kim hey ne cândur bu
Didiler bu ruḫ-ı zîbâyı ṣorma özge cândur bu
Düşelden leblerüñ ‘aksi bu câm-ı dîdeme cânâ
Görenler dir ḳabaġumı ki ṣâfî ṭolu ḳandur bu
Didi ḳaddüm ḫayâlini derûn-ı dilde muḥkem ṭut
Didüm kim bir elif gibi bu cân içre nihândur bu
Didi şükrâne vaṣlımçün vir evvel baş u cân didüm
Yolında öldügüm çoḳdan yoluñda der-miyândur bu
Müjeñ tîrini sînemden dirîġ itme ki evvelden
Ḫadeng-i ġamze-i dilberler içün bir nişândur bu
Getür bâd-ı ṣabâ luṭf it ḥabîbüñ zülfi bûyından
Dil-i mecrûḥıma zîrâ be-ġâyet armaġandur bu
Görüp iġmâż-ı ‘ayn itme kemîne Mihrî'yi cânâ
Reh-i ‘aşḳuñda cân virür senüñ ḫaylî zamândur bu

In English

1. Today I saw one with a rosebud mouth and said, "Hey, what a soul this is." They said, "Do not ask about this beautiful face; this is a different kind of soul." ("Cân" here means both the beloved and the one whose beauty strikes a person down in the house of his soul.)

2. O soul, ever since the reflection of your lips fell into the goblet of my eye, those who see it look at my eyelid and say, "This is filled with blood from end to end." (The eye is likened to a goblet filled with tears; when the red reflection of the lip falls into this goblet, the eye, reddened with weeping, looks full of blood.)

3. The beloved said, "Keep the image of my stature firm within your heart." I said, "This image is hidden within the soul like an alif." (Alif, the first letter of the Arabic alphabet, is perfectly straight and a single stroke, and stands for a tall, upright stature. There is also an alif in the middle of the word "cân" written in Arabic letters.)

4. The beloved said, "As thanks for union with me, first give your head and your soul." I said, "I died on your road long ago; this head and soul are already on your road, ready in the middle."

5. Do not spare my breast the arrow of your lashes; for from of old this breast has been a target for the glance-arrows of the beautiful.

6. O morning breeze, be so kind as to bring something of the scent of the beloved's hair; for this scent is an exceedingly precious gift to my wounded heart.

7. O soul, seeing this worthless servant Mihrî, do not look away; it has been some time since she gave her life on the road of your love.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The hundred and thirty-sixth ghazal has seven couplets and is written in the hezec metre of the aruz, in the pattern "Mefâ‘îlün Mefâ‘îlün Mefâ‘îlün Mefâ‘îlün". The four long, balanced feet of "Mefâ‘îlün" give the lines a broad breath. The redif (refrain word) is the demonstrative pronoun "bu" (this); the rhyme is built on the sound "-ân" (cân, ḳan, nihân, miyân, nişân, armaġan, zamân). In the opening couplet both lines end with "cândur bu"; the use of the same word twice in the rhyme position ties the astonishment of the first line to the answer in the second. The ghazal is found in the F, S and Ü manuscripts and is the first poem in the section of the letter Vâv in the Divan. It is not known to whom it was written. In Havlioğlu's text it appears as ghazal 139.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The most distinctive feature of the ghazal is that it moves by conversations. In the opening couplet the poet asks about a beauty she has seen and others answer; in the third and fourth couplets there is a short exchange between the beloved and the lover, set up with the words "didi" (she said) and "didüm" (I said). Couplets of this kind, written in question and answer, give the ghazal a liveliness close to a story. By making the beloved speak, Mihrî does not leave her only as a beauty watched from afar but turns her into a person who talks with the lover and sets conditions.

In the second couplet the eye is a goblet. Gülşen Kaya explains through this couplet that in the Divan the eye is likened to a goblet because of the liquid in it and its round shape, and that the eye reddened with weeping is shown, by hüsn-i ta‘lil (fantastic etiology), as a goblet full of blood. The falling of the lip's red reflection into this goblet is offered as a poetic reason for the eye's reddening. The word "ḳabaḳ" means eyelid; with the words câm (goblet), ṣâfî (pure), ṭolu (full) and ḳan (blood) it forms a congruence of images (tenasüp) that recalls the wine gathering.

The alif simile in the third couplet is the most graceful invention of the ghazal. Kaya notes that in the Divan the stature is likened to the alif because of its length and straightness, that the alif also expresses oneness and singularity, and that in this couplet there is nothing in the lover's heart but love and the image of the beloved. A play of writing accompanies this: in Arabic letters the word "cân" is written with the letters cim, alif and nun, so the alif really does stand in the middle of "cân". The image of the beloved's stature is also "hidden within the soul" in the word itself.

The fourth couplet takes up the price of union. The beloved asks for head and soul as thanks for meeting; the lover says that these have long since been sacrificed on her road. The word "der-miyân" expresses that something is present in the middle, ready at hand. The fifth couplet uses the familiar picture of arrow and target in divan poetry: the lash is an arrow, the glance of the beautiful a "ḫadeng", that is, an arrow, and the lover's breast a "nişân", that is, a target. Kaya cites this couplet among the examples in which the lover asks the beloved not to withhold the arrows of her lashes. In the sixth couplet the morning breeze, "bâd-ı ṣabâ", is summoned as the messenger that brings scent from the beloved's hair; this scent is counted a gift to the wounded heart.

In the closing couplet Mihrî calls herself "kemîne", a worthless servant, and asks the beloved to stop "iġmâż-ı ‘ayn", turning a blind eye, looking away. The couplets that opened with the word eye thus close again with an expression of the eye.

The manuscript differences are small changes of wording. The F manuscript changes the word order in the second line of the opening couplet ("ṣorma bu ruḫ-ı zîbâyı"), reads "Didim" in the third couplet, and says "bûy-ı zülfinden" in place of "zülfi bûyından" in the sixth.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Mehmet Arslan (ed.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları (Kültür Eserleri Dizisi 576), 2018, p. 122, Ghazal 136 (F 61b, S 63b, Ü 58b). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr

Academic studies

  • Gülşen Kaya, Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı'nın Tahlili, master's thesis, Fırat Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Elazığ 2010, pp. 164, 184, 222. openaccess.firat.edu.tr

Other sources

  • Didem Havlioğlu (ed.), "Ğazeliyyāt-ı Mihri-i Hāqīre", türkoloji-iran, 2007 (a different transliteration of the ghazal, ghazal 139).

Online sources