Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Bu ḥüsn ü bu melâḥat u bu ḫulḳ u ḫûy ile
Ḳılduñ cihân demâġını tâze bu bûy ile
Cânâ bu cânı sidre ḳadüñ müntehâsına
Teslîm çoḳdan eylemişüz yüzi ṣuyıla
Dil her ne deñlü çekse ġamuñdan belâ senüñ
Döndürmez ol yüzini eger postı ṣoyıla
Zülfüñ ġamını dest-i ezel yazdı başuma
Ṣanma ki tâ ölince bu yazuyı yoyıla
Devlet hümâsı olmış iken ismüñ ey perî
Pervâz urup neden k'uçasın şimdi tüy ile
Hem-râh idinme kendüñe aġyârı sevdügüm
Sen meh ṣıfatlu yürimesün zengi rûy ile
Zencîr ṭutmaz idi bu dîvâne Mihrî'yi
Bend'itdi bend-i zülfüñ anı şimdi mûy ile

In English

1. With this beauty, this sweetness, this character and this temper, you have refreshed the world's nostrils with this fragrance. (The beloved's good nature is imagined as a pleasant scent spreading around; "dimağ" here means the seat of smell, the nose.)

2. O beloved, we gave up this life long ago, with honour intact, to the farthest point of your stature, the Sidra. (The Sidrat al-Muntaha is the tree at the very limit of heaven in the account of the Ascension. The beloved's tall stature is likened to this tree; "yüz suyu", face-water, means honour and dignity.)

3. However much affliction the heart suffers from your sorrow, it will not turn its face from you, even if its skin is flayed.

4. The hand of pre-eternity, that is, destiny, wrote the grief of your tress on my head; do not think this writing will be effaced until I die. (This rests on the belief that fate is written on the brow or head; "yoyılmak" means to be erased or spoiled.)

5. O fairy, when your name had become Hüma, the bird of fortune, why would you now flap your wings and fly off with a feather? (The couplet can be read in two ways: literally, it is a reproach to the beloved, counted as the bird of fortune, for flying away from the lover; if "tüy" is understood as the down growing on the beloved's face, the beloved is asked not to flee, thinking the age of beauty is over because down has appeared on the face.)

6. My beloved, do not take strangers, rivals, as your travelling companions; you are moon-like in brightness, so do not let you walk with a black-faced one. ("Zengî-rûy" means Zanj-faced, black-faced; in divan poetry it is a phrase used to disparage the rival.)

7. A chain would not hold this mad Mihrî; now the bond of your tress has bound her with a single hair. (This refers to the old custom of chaining the insane: the lover whom a chain could not restrain has been overcome by a single strand of the beloved's hair.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The ghazal has seven couplets (beyit) and is written in the muzari metre of the aruz (quantitative metre), in the pattern "Mef'ûlü Fâ'ilâtü Mefâ'îlü Fâ'ilün". A ghazal is a short verse form made up of couplets, in which the two lines of the first couplet and the second lines of the other couplets rhyme with one another, and whose last couplet carries the poet's pen name (mahlas). In this poem the redif (refrain word) is the particle "ile", and the rhyme is carried by the sound "-uy / -üy" in the words "ḫûy, bûy, ṣu(yı), ṣo(yı), yo(yı), tüy, rûy, mûy". In the second, third and fourth couplets "ile" fuses with the preceding word and takes the form "yüzi ṣuyıla, postı ṣoyıla, yoyıla"; this is a pleasing sound play in which the same refrain works both as a particle and as a suffix. In the divan it stands among the "Ḥarfü'l-Hâ" ghazals, that is, those whose redif ends with the letter ha, and it is found in all four manuscripts. The manuscript variants are small: the Ü manuscript reads "bozıla" in place of "yoyıla", and the F manuscript "olup" in place of "urup". According to Sıtkı Nazik's survey of refrains, the refrain "ile" is used in three of Mihrî's ghazals (G.149, G.150, G.160), and the same refrain appears in two ghazals in the divan of Tâcîzâde Cafer Çelebi. There is no record of whom it was written for.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The first couplet of the ghazal opens with praise. Gülşen Kaya cites this couplet when describing Mihrî's conception of the beloved: not only the lover but the whole world is enthralled by the beloved, whose beauty, sweetness, temper and nature spread fresh fragrances through the world. Lining up the words "ḥüsn, melâḥat, ḫulḳ, ḫûy" one after another forms a congruence of images (tenasüp); the beloved's outward beauty and inner beauty meet in the same line. The word "bûy" (scent) turns these abstract qualities into something that can be sensed.

From the second couplet the ghazal turns to the lover's fidelity. Likening the stature to the Sidra tree is one of the familiar comparisons for a tall stature in divan poetry, along with the cypress and the tûbâ; the word "müntehâ" both completes the compound Sidretü'l-müntehâ and expresses the furthest point the soul can reach. The idiom "postı ṣoyıla" in the third couplet is a harsh phrase recalling the flaying of skin by torture, and states in exaggerated fashion that the lover will not turn away. In the fourth couplet the link between the words "yazdı" and "yazu" and the contrast between pre-eternity and death show the idea of destiny from both ends: the writing was written in pre-eternity and is not effaced until death.

The fifth couplet is the ghazal's most open to interpretation. Huma is the legendary bird believed to make a king of whomever's head its shadow falls on; Kaya notes that in the divan this bird is used especially to describe princes and sultans. The phrases "pervâz urmak" (to flap the wings) and "uçmak" (to fly) form a congruence related to the bird, while "tüy" calls to mind both a bird's feather and the down on the beloved's face. In the sixth couplet the colour contrast between the moon and the black face expresses jealousy at the beloved's being seen together with the rival. Kaya treats the expression "zengî-rûy" among the names of peoples in the divan and records that it is used to disparage the rival.

The last couplet ties the conceit of the mad lover to the contrast of chain and strand of hair. Kaya gives this couplet as an example of the account that the sultan's slaves are bound in chains and that this chain is the beloved's bond of hair. The occurrence of the word "bend" twice in the same line, first as part of the verb "bağlamak" and then in the compound "bend-i zülf", creates an effect of repetition (tekrir) and pun (cinas). The contrast between "zencîr" and "mûy" is also the wit of the couplet: what an iron chain could not hold, a single hair has held.

Bibliography

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