Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilün

Eyledük yâr ile ṣaḥrâları seyrân bu gice
Vâcib oldur baña şükrâne virem cân bu gice
Devlet atına süvâr olmış idük bir nice yâr
Bizüm olmış idi başdan başa meydân bu gice
Tîġ-ı ḳahr ile raḳîbüñ iki çalduḳ başın
Elümüzdeydi belî ṭop ile çevgân bu gice
Ẓâhir itdi ruḫını zülfi seḥâbın götürüp
Yârlıḳ itdi bizümle meh-i tâbân bu gice
Mest idüm ‘aşḳı meyinden daḫi bir bâde ṣunup
Cur‘a-i la‘li beni eyledi ḥayrân bu gice
Müdde‘î yârümi men‘ itmege cehd itdi velî
Azdurımadı ne dirsin anı şeyṭân bu gice
Aramızdan şükür Allâh'a ki eksildi raḳîb
Hele ser vaḳtümüze irmedi hicrân bu gice
Ka‘be-i ḥüsnini çünkim bize itdürdi ṭavâf
Eyledüm biñ dil ile cânumı ḳurbân bu gice
Mâh-ı ẕi'l-ḥiccenüñ on beş gicesi ḫoş şeb idi
K'eyledi yâr ile Mihrî bile seyrân bu gice

In English

1. Tonight we strolled through the open country with the beloved; it is incumbent on me to give my life tonight in thanks for this blessing.

2. Tonight a few friends and I had mounted the steed of good fortune; the field was entirely ours from end to end. (To mount the horse of fortune: luck going one's way, affairs running as one wishes.)

3. With the sword of wrath we split the rival's head in two; yes, tonight both the ball and the polo stick were in our hands. (Çevgân is the game in which mounted players drive a ball with a stick curved at the end; to hold "ball and stick" means to command the field. The first line can also be read as "we struck the rival's head twice".)

4. Tonight the bright moon lifted the cloud of her hair, showed its face and kept company with us. (The hair is the cloud, the face the moon; when the cloud parts the moon appears.)

5. I was already drunk on the wine of her love; offering one more cup, a sip from her lip left me utterly entranced tonight.

6. The rival tried hard to keep my beloved from coming to me; but what do you say, tonight even Satan did not lead her astray.

7. Thanks be to God, the rival has dropped out from among us; at least tonight separation did not reach the hour of our meeting.

8. Since she made us circle the Kaaba of her beauty, tonight I sacrificed my life with a thousand hearts.

9. The fifteenth night of the month of Dhu al-Hijja was a pleasant night; on that night Mihrî went out strolling with the beloved.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The 143rd ghazal (gazel) of the divan stands in the section for the letter ha and has nine couplets (beyit). It is written in the remel metre of the aruz (quantitative metre), in the pattern "Fe'ilâtün Fe'ilâtün Fe'ilâtün Fe'ilün". The redif (refrain word) is "bu gice" (tonight), and the rhyme is the sound "-ân" (seyrân, cân, meydân, çevgân, tâbân, ḥayrân, şeyṭân, hicrân, ḳurbân). The ghazal is found only in the Istanbul University manuscript (Ü 60a). Considering that the 210 ghazals in the divan total 1287 couplets, that is, about six couplets on average, with nine couplets it is a long ghazal. There is no record of whom it was written for, but the last couplet states plainly on which night the poem was composed.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal expresses the joy of a night stroll spent with the beloved. The poet frames this night as a victory: in the first three couplets she and her friends have mounted the steed of fortune, taken the field, and split the rival's head with the sword. The words horse, field, sword, ball and polo stick are used together as a congruence of images (tenasüp). Çevgân is a game in which mounted players drive a ball with a stick; to say "the ball and the stick were in our hands" is to say that the field and the game were wholly theirs. The rival's head can also be imagined as the ball of this game. This harsh and cheerful language prepares the joyful mood in the rest of the ghazal.

In the fourth couplet the beloved's face is likened to the moon and her hair to the cloud that covers the moon. Kaya cites this couplet in her study of conceptions of the moon in the divan: when the cloud of hair is drawn aside, the moon of the face appears. In the fifth couplet love is likened to wine, and the beloved's lip to wine through the sip (cur'a) in the cup; Kaya gives this couplet as an example of the congruence of love and intoxication, wine and lip. The sixth and seventh couplets are given to the rival. The claimant (müdde'î) tried to hinder the beloved but could not; the poet, saying that even Satan could not lead the beloved astray tonight, equates the rival with Satan.

The eighth and ninth couplets are the key of the ghazal. The beloved's beauty is likened to the Kaaba, the lover circles this Kaaba and sacrifices her life. The words Kaaba, circumambulation (tavaf) and sacrifice (kurban) call to mind the pilgrimage, and the date given in the last couplet fits this. Dhu al-Hijja (zilhicce) is the month in which the pilgrimage is made and the Feast of Sacrifice is celebrated. Kaya notes that the fifteenth of Dhu al-Hijja in the couplet falls just after the feast, and that the couplet describes a night stroll with the beloved after the festival. Because the month begins with the crescent in the lunar calendar, the fifteenth night of the month is a full-moon night; the image of the "meh-i tâbân" (bright moon) in the fourth couplet also agrees in this respect with the real look of the night. This link among sacrifice, Kaaba, circumambulation and Dhu al-Hijja shows that the ghazal was composed in the atmosphere of the festival days.

Historical Context

It is not known to whom the ghazal was addressed; but there are several studies on its literary ties. Metin Hakverdioğlu regards this ghazal as a nazire (response poem) to Necâtî's ghazal with the opening couplet "Gözüñ aç itdi Ḫudâ dilberi hem-dem bu gice", and publishes the two poems side by side. Günay Tulum discusses this view in her article on poems with the word "gice/gece" in the refrain: the two ghazals have the same refrain and metre, but their rhyme letters and vocabulary do not resemble each other. Tulum nevertheless draws attention to the optimistic outlook in the closing couplets of both poems and to the fact that the compound "şem'-i şebistân" is not used in either, and says that Mihrî's ghazal can be regarded as a response to Necâtî as well.

According to Tulum, the ghazal belongs chiefly to a broad network of naziras built on the rhyme and refrain "-ân bu gice". The Pervâne Bey Mecmuası gives Ahmed Paşa's ghazal "Yine yan şem' gibi ṣubḥa dek ey cân bu gice" as the base poem of this chain, while Câmi'ü'n-Neẓâ'ir and Mecma'u'n-Neẓâ'ir give a ghazal by Avnî (Fâtih Sultan Mehmed). Tulum divides the poems in this chain into two groups, optimistic and pessimistic, according to their view of waiting for the beloved, and places this nine-couplet ghazal of Mihrî, because it expresses the joy of reaching the beloved, in the optimistic group alongside Ahmed Paşa. Tulum also notes that this ghazal does not appear in the nazire anthologies, and that it is striking that it has nine couplets when most poems in the chain have five. She further shows that the fourth couplet is matched with similar expressions in ghazals on the same ground by a poet named Sa'dî-i Şîrâzî, and the seventh couplet in those of Hâkî.

Sıtkı Nazik also compares Mihrî's ghazals with the refrain "bu gice" with the ghazals of Tâcî-zâde Cafer Çelebi of Amasya with the same refrain. According to Nazik, in this ghazal Mihrî says that she and the beloved strolled through the open country and that giving her life is required in thanks for it, while Cafer Çelebi says that the countryside turned into paradise with the beloved; both poets treat the happiness of being together with the beloved.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Mehmet Arslan (ed.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları (Kültür Eserleri Dizisi 576), 2018, p. 126, Ghazal 143 (Ü 60a). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr

Academic studies

  • Günay Tulum, "Redifinde Gice/Gece Kelimesi Geçen Şiirler Üzerinden Bir Değerlendirme", Türk Dili ve Edebiyatı Dergisi 63/2 (2023), pp. 617-653 (pp. 630-633 and Appendix 11), doi:10.26650/TUDED2023-1255705. https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/article-file/3054260
  • Metin Hakverdioğlu, "Mihrî Hâtun'un Necâtî Bey'in Şiirlerine Nazîreleri", Turkish Studies 4/2 (Winter 2009), pp. 522-551 (comparison: Necâtî DXXXIV / Mihrî CXLV, by the number in the author's own edition, pp. 545-546), doi:10.7827/TurkishStudies.638.
  • 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 (ghazals with the refrain "bu gice", pp. 141-142). https://isamveri.org/pdfdrg/G00226/2017/2017_NAZIKS.pdf
  • Gülşen Kaya, Mihrî Hâtun Divânı'nın Tahlili, master's thesis, Fırat Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Elazığ 2010 (entries on the moon, wine, Ka'be-i hüsn and Dhu al-Hijja). openaccess.firat.edu.tr

Online sources