Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mef‘ûlü Fâ‘ilâtü Mefâ‘îlü Fâ‘ilün

Bir ḫoş ġazel didüm yine ben ḫaṭt-ı Aḥmed'e
Cân ṣafḥasında eyledüm anı müsevvede
Yel gibi yıllar ile hevâsında yelmişem
Oldum esîr âḫir o zülf-i müca‘‘ada
Çoḳdur cihânda cevr ü cefâsıyla mübteẕel
Bulunmaya benüm gibi bir daḫi ġam-zede
Kûyuñda gözlerüm yaşı ol deñlü aḳdı kim
Ġarḳ oldı her ḥaremleri dürr ü zebercede
Ḳânûn-ı ‘aşḳ ḳâmetümi eylemişdi çeng
Nây itdi cismümi daḫi iñlede iñlede
Ġamzesi cânumı çekişür çeşmi göñlümi
Eksük degül çü mestler arasında ‘arbede
Dânâ odur ki ḫûblara zâhid göñül vire
Nâdân odur ki sevmedi maḥbûbı dünyede
Kimse cihânda müdde‘iye boynın egmesün
Muḥtâc itme Mihrî'yi yâ Rab muḫannede
Gûyâ siperde âyinelerdür żiyâ virür
Tîr-i ḫadeng-i ġamzesi peykânı sînede

In English

1. Once more I have composed a fine ghazal on Ahmed's down; I wrote it as a draft on the page of the soul. (Hat means both the fine down on the cheek and writing; müsvedde, "draft", comes from a root meaning "blackened" and also calls to mind the blackness of the down.)

2. For years I have run like the wind after his love; in the end I became a captive of that curly tress. (The word "hevâ" means both air and desire or love; mentioned together with the wind, both senses come to mind at once.)

3. There are many in the world brought low and left worthless by his cruelty and torment; but no other sorrowing one like me will be found.

4. In your quarter the tears of my eyes flowed so abundantly that all its houses, even the harem quarters, were drowned in pearls and emeralds. (Tears are likened to pearls, bloody tears to precious stones; the emerald is a green precious stone.)

5. The law of love had bent my stature like a harp (çeng); and what did it make of my body, making it moan and moan? (Kanun means both law and a stringed instrument; the çeng is an instrument with a curved body, and the ney is a hollow reed flute with a moaning sound.)

6. Her ghamze pulls at my life and her eye pulls at my heart; after all, brawling is not lacking among drunkards. (The beloved's languid eye is likened to a drunkard; the glance and the eye, unable to share the lover, are like two drunkards quarrelling.)

7. O ascetic, the wise one is he who gives his heart to the beautiful; the ignorant one is he who has never loved a beloved in this world. (The couplet can be read in two ways: "zâhid" can be taken as an address, or as a description meaning "who gives his heart to the beautiful purely and piously".)

8. Let no one in the world bow his neck to the rival; O Lord, do not make Mihrî dependent on a base man.

9. The arrow-head of the shaft from her glance, lodged in my breast, gives off light like mirrors on a shield.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The 147th ghazal (gazel) of the divan stands in the section for the letter ha and has nine couplets (beyit). It is written in the muzâri metre of the aruz (quantitative metre), in the pattern "Mef'ûlü Fâ'ilâtü Mefâ'îlü Fâ'ilün". The ghazal has no redif (refrain word); the rhyme is built on the sound "-de" (müsevvede, müca''ada, ġam-zede, zebercede, iñlede, 'arbede, dünyede, muḫannede, sînede). The ghazal is found only in the Istanbul University manuscript (Ü 60b). There is a notable point in its structure: the poet's pen name (mahlas) appears in the eighth couplet and one more couplet follows it. Since in a ghazal the pen name generally stands in the last couplet, the ninth couplet is left after the mahlas couplet; whether this stems from the ordering of the single manuscript or from the poet's choice is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet speaks about the ghazal itself. The poet says she has again composed a fine ghazal "on Ahmed's down" and written it as a draft on the page of the soul. The word "ḫaṭ" is a tevriye (double entendre): it means both the fine hair newly appearing on the cheeks of young men and writing. Gülşen Kaya notes that in Mihrî's divan the face is likened to a page and the down to writing on that page, and that hat is therefore mostly used as a double entendre. The words page (ṣafḥa), writing (ḫaṭ) and draft (müsvedde) are used together to create congruence of images (tenasüp).

In the second couplet there is a play of sound between "yel" (wind) and "yelmek" (to run); Kaya gives this couplet as an example of the word "hevâ" being used as a double entendre, with both senses of air and love. The curly tress (zülf-i müca''ad) is a bond that takes the lover captive. The third and fourth couplets describe the lover's grief and tears with exaggeration: all the houses in the beloved's quarter have been drowned in tears like the pearls and emeralds the lover has shed. This exaggeration is one of the familiar forms of hyperbole (mübalağa) in divan poetry.

The fifth couplet is built on musical terms. Kaya notes that the instruments ney, çeng and kanun are used in the divan to describe the lover's moaning, bent stature and pierced body, and that the compound "kânûn-ı 'aşk" is a double entendre: the kanun is both the law of love and an instrument. The law of love has bent the lover's stature like a harp and made her body moan like a reed flute. In the sixth couplet the beloved's eye and ghamze are likened to two drunkards who cannot share the lover; the second line can be counted as irsâl-i mesel (a proverb-like statement), since it brings a truth everyone knows as though it were proof. In the seventh couplet an antithesis (tezat) is set up between the wise (dânâ) and the ignorant (nâdân); of this couplet Kaya says that knowledge and ignorance are treated in the divan by the measure of knowing love. The eighth couplet is a prayer; the poet asks God not to make her dependent on a base man. In the last couplet the arrow of the ghamze is lodged in the breast, and its head gleams there like mirrors on a shield. Kaya explains with this couplet that the arrow-head is likened to mirrors on a shield because of its brightness.

Historical Context

The poem does not say outright who the Ahmed named in the opening couplet is. Gülşen Kaya cites this couplet as an example of Mihrî composing a ghazal on the hat of Prince Ahmed. Mehmet Arslan too writes in the introduction to his edition that, as far as can be understood from their contents, three ghazals were presented to Prince Ahmed, but he does not say which ghazals these are. It is known that Mihrî entered the literary circle around the prince's palace during Prince Ahmed's governorship of Amasya, and that, according to Sehî, she gave him many kasides (qasidas) and ghazals; in this respect it is plausible that the ghazal was composed for Ahmed. Even so, whether the poem is a presentation ghazal or merely a ghazal written to a beauty named Ahmed is not settled in the sources; Kaya's finding should be taken as an interpretation.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Mehmet Arslan (ed.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları (Kültür Eserleri Dizisi 576), 2018, p. 128, Ghazal 147 (Ü 60b); on the poems presented to Prince Ahmed, introduction p. 6. ekitap.ktb.gov.tr

Academic studies

  • Gülşen Kaya, Mihrî Hâtun Divânı'nın Tahlili, master's thesis, Fırat Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Elazığ 2010 (entries on hat, rüzgâr-hevâ, musical instruments, mest, dânâ-nâdân and gamze-peykân). openaccess.firat.edu.tr
  • İsmail E. Erünsal, "Mihrî Hatun", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 30, Ankara 2020, pp. 37-38. https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/mihri-hatun

Online sources