Özgün Metin

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

Dostum ḫaste-dili hecrüñ odı nice yaḳa
Aldı ‘aşḳuñ eline yaḳamı ḥâlime baḳ a
‘Ār u nâmûsı yoluñda yele virmişdi göñül
Şimdi ġarḳ itdi gözüm yaşı anı aḳa aḳa
Müdde‘î gerçi bizüm aramuza girdi velî
Yine beñzer k'o la‘în çatladısardur ṭıraḳa
Āsitânuñdan anı sürmek ile gitmedi âh
Getür e bir gün ola biz ḳoyalum anı Ḥaḳ'a
Yüzüñi görmese çıḳsun niderem iki gözüm
Gündüzin güneşe tâ kim gice bedr aya baḳa
Buña ṭaş çatlar i Mihrî ne taḥammül demidür
Ġayriyi yâr ide yârüñ seni gözden bıraḳa

In English

1. My friend, how the fire of your separation burns this sick heart; I have given my collar into the hands of your love, look at my state. (The first "yaḳa" comes from the verb "to burn," while the second "yaḳa" is the collar of a garment; the two words share one sound and carry different meanings. "To give one's collar into someone's hands" means to be left helpless in their grasp.)

2. The heart had given its shame and its concern for honour to the wind on your path; now my tears, flowing and flowing, have drowned them. (To "give to the wind" means to scatter or squander. The shame and honour that the heart had long since written off are now carried away by a flood of tears as well.)

3. Though the rival has come between us, that accursed one still seems about to burst with envy. (The word "ṭıraḳa" is read differently in the manuscripts: manuscripts M and S have "dıraḳa" and manuscript F has "varaḳa". The exact sense of the word is uncertain; the general meaning of the line is that the rival is bursting with envy.)

4. Ah, he did not go even when driven from your threshold; come, let there be a day when we leave him to God. (The couplet can be read in two ways. In the first line "anı" refers to the rival, who has not left the beloved's door although he was driven away. The words "getür e" in the second line can be understood as an exclamation wishing for a time to come; on another reading, the beloved is addressed with "bring him, then." In either case the lover says he will leave the rival's reckoning to God.)

5. If they are not to see your face, let my two eyes be put out; what would I do with them? To look at the sun by day and the full moon by night?

6. Mihrî, even a stone would crack at this; is this a time for endurance? Should your beloved take another as beloved and cast you out of favour? ("To let go from the eye" means to cease to value someone as before.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The ghazal (gazel) has six couplets (beyit) and is written in the ramal metre of aruz (quantitative metre), in the pattern "Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilün". This ghazal has no separate redif (refrain word); rhyme and refrain are gathered together in the sound group "-aḳa": "yaḳa, baḳ a, aḳa, ṭıraḳa, Ḥaḳ'a, baḳa, bıraḳa". Some of the rhyme words are verbs ("yaḳa, baḳa, bıraḳa"), some are nouns ("yaḳa, Ḥaḳ'a"), and one is an imperative stretched by an exclamation ("baḳ a"). This variety lets the same sound return in each couplet with a different function. The ghazal is found in four manuscripts; the manuscript differences lie mainly in the word "ṭıraḳa" in the third couplet and in the variation "anı / beni" in the second. There is no record of whom it was written for.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The subject of the ghazal is separation and jealousy. The lover burns in the fire of parting, is helpless in the hands of love, and cannot bear the rival's coming between them. The poem carries the voice of an anguished heart; this voice reaches its height in the last couplet, where the lover says openly that his patience is spent.

The opening couplet (matla) is built on a perfect pun (tam cinas). The "yaḳa" ("burns") at the end of the first line and the "yaḳa" (the collar of a garment) at the beginning of the second are written and pronounced the same but differ in meaning. The burning of fire and the surrender of the collar express with a single word that the lover is both burning within and being seized from without. In the second couplet there is a congruence of images (tenasüp) based on the elements of air and water among "yele virmek," "ġarḳ itmek" and "aḳa aḳa"; the shame and honour the heart gave to the wind are in the end swept away by a flood of tears. The reduplication "aḳa aḳa" also makes the ceaseless flow of tears audible.

The fifth couplet is the most striking of the ghazal. Gülşen Kaya treats it in her section on the eye: once the lover no longer sees the beloved's face, which is superior to the moon and the sun, the eye has no value for him; let both his eyes be put out, there is no need to look at the sun by day or the moon by night. The couplet is a hyperbole that rates the beloved's face above the sun and moon; sun and moon become consolations not worth looking at if the beloved is not seen. Contrast and congruence appear together in "gündüz" and "gice," and in "güneş" and "bedr" (full moon).

In the last couplet the idiom "ṭaş çatlar" (a stone would crack) connects with the rival's bursting in the third couplet: while the rival bursts with envy, a stone that looks on the lover's condition cracks with pity. The pen-name (mahlas) couplet ends in reproach; the beloved's taking another as his beloved and casting the lover out of favour ties the ghazal's theme of separation to an open scene of jealousy.

Bibliography

Online sources