Özgün Metin

Vezin: Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilün

Dostum geçmedi bir gün sözümüz yanuñda
Baña itdüklerüñi bulasın îmânuñda
Ha bugün cevr ü cefâñ ile beni öldüresin
Yarın elüm olur a hele girîbânuñda
Sen ciger zaḫmına her demde ṭurup ek nemegi
Ben diyem ḳomaya ḥaḳḳı var ise nânuñda
Yüzime baḳma raḳîbüñ sözi ile ḳo beni
Öleyüm çekmeyeyüm minnetini anuñ da
Mihrî dil-ḫasteyi öldürdi ġamuñ sen ṣaġ ol
Sevdügüm var saña şimden girü dermânuñ da

In English

1. My friend, not once did our word carry weight with you; may you find what you have done to me in your faith. ("Our word never carried" means to receive no regard, not to be heard. The second line is a kind of curse: may you answer for your injustice in the hereafter, where your faith is weighed.)

2. Go on, kill me today with your cruelty and torment; tomorrow my hand will be on your collar. ("Tomorrow" is the Day of Resurrection, and "a hand on the collar" means seeking justice and demanding an account. The lover says that if he is killed, he will seize the beloved by the collar in the hereafter.)

3. You stand there at every moment sowing salt on the wound of my liver; I say, let him not leave it, if he has a claim on your bread. (The couplet can be read in two ways. Salt and bread, things eaten together, recall the bond of friendship called "the right of salt and bread." Each time the beloved puts salt on the wound, a right of salt and bread arises between them; the lover wishes that, if the beloved truly has such a claim on his bread, it should seize him and not let him go. On a gentler reading, the lover wants the right of salt and bread between them not to be lost.)

4. Do not look at my face at the word of the rival; leave me. Let me die, and let me not bear the obligation of him as well.

5. Your grief has killed Mihrî, sick at heart; long may you live. My beloved, from now on the cure too is yours. (The lover says he no longer expects a remedy from the beloved: your sorrow has killed me, keep your medicine for yourself.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The ghazal (gazel) has five couplets (beyit) and is written in the ramal metre of aruz (quantitative metre), in the pattern "Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilün". The rhyme rests on the sound "-an / -ân" in the words "yan, îmân, girîbân, nân, an, dermân"; the redif (refrain word) is the suffix "-uñda". In the fourth and fifth couplets the redif ceases to be a suffix and turns into the conjunction "da" in "anuñ da" and "dermânuñ da"; the same sound pattern continues while its spelling and function change. The ghazal is found in four manuscripts. The fourth couplet is absent from manuscript Ü; in manuscript F, "yanuñda" is read in place of "nânuñda" in the third couplet. There is no record of whom it was written for.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal is written as a reproach close to spoken language rather than in the ornate language of praise of divan poetry. The lover complains that his word has no weight with the beloved, and in the first two couplets he appeals openly to the reckoning of the hereafter. The contrast between "today" and "tomorrow" sets injustice in this world against the accounting in the next. Interjections and emphatic words such as "ha bugün" and "a hele" also bring the liveliness of everyday speech into the couplets.

The third couplet rests on a widely held social value, the right of salt and bread. Discussing beliefs and customs in the divan, Gülşen Kaya gives this couplet as an example in which the right of salt and bread is expressed and the belief is seen that no one will be left owing a right to another person. "Zaḫm" (wound) together with "nemek" (salt) recalls the idiom of putting salt on a wound; "nemek" with "nân" (bread) forms the idiom "the right of salt and bread." Thus the same salt becomes in one line a symbol of pain and in the other a symbol of the debt of friendship. This double use is the most skilful point of the ghazal.

The fourth couplet shows together the three-figure cast of divan poetry, the lover, the beloved and the rival. The lover does not want the beloved to favour him at the rival's word; he counts a compliment that would come through the rival as a debt of obligation and prefers death to it. The couplet carries a harsh stance that protects the lover's pride. In the last couplet the contrast between "öldürdi" (killed) and "ṣaġ ol" (long may you live) draws attention: the lover is dead, yet the beloved is told "sağ ol." The phrase is at once a good wish and a bitter mockery. The congruence (tenasüp) between "dil-ḫaste" (sick at heart) and "dermân" (cure) completes the wit of the closing: once the patient has died, the medicine is left to its owner.

Bibliography

Online sources