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Vezin: Mef‘ûlü Mefâ‘îlü Mefâ‘îlü Fa‘ûlün

Didüm yüzüñi görmedüm evvelki görişte
Burḳa‘ götürüp açdı yüzin didi gör işte
Geh şânededür zülfüñ ü geh fikri dilümde
El-ḳıṣṣa bu miskîni ḳoduñ dilde vü dişde
Göz gördi göñül bildi ki ben küşte-i ‘aşḳam
Kimse baña raḥm itmedi bilişde görişde
Çün alduñ elüñe yaḳamı ḥâlüme baḳ kim
Dirler gözüñ aşd'olsun olurken elüñ işde
Ey ġamze cigerden gidicek cân bile gitmiş
Billâh bu Mihrî'ye getür anı gelişte

In English

1. I said, "I did not see your face at first sight"; she lifted her veil, uncovered her face and said, "Here, look." (The burka is the veil that covers the face. The "görişte" ("at sight") at the end of the first line and the "gör işte" ("look, here") at the end of the second carry the same sound.)

2. Your tress is sometimes in the comb, and the thought of it is sometimes in my heart; in short, you have set this wretch on every tongue and in every mouth. ("Dilde vü dişde" means "on the tongue and in the teeth," that is, in everyone's mouth. "Şâne" is the comb; a link is drawn between tress and comb, and between thought and heart.)

3. The eye saw, the heart knew that I am one slain by love; yet no one took pity on me, neither among acquaintances nor among those who saw. ("Bilişte görişte" means among those who knew and those who saw.)

4. Since you have taken my collar in your hand, look at my state; they say, "While your hand is at work, let your eye be on the meal." (The couplet rests on sayings about the eye being elsewhere while the hand is busy. The lover asks the beloved, whose hand is on his collar, to turn her eye to his condition too; the saying in the second line supports this request with advice from popular speech.)

5. O glance, when you left my liver, my soul went with you; by God, when you come back, bring it back to this Mihrî. (In divan poetry the beloved's languid glance, the "ġamze," is likened to an arrow lodged in the lover's liver. When the arrow went out of the liver it took the soul with it.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The ghazal (gazel) has five couplets (beyit) and is written in the hezec metre of aruz (quantitative metre), in the pattern "Mef‘ûlü Mefâ‘îlü Mefâ‘îlü Fa‘ûlün". Rhyme and redif (refrain word) merge in the sound group "-işte / -işde": "görişte, gör işte, dişde, görişde, işde, gelişte". In the opening couplet (matla) the word "görişte" (at sight) in the first line and the phrase "gör işte" in the second give the same sound; in divan poetry the correspondence in sound of a single word and a phrase built from two words is called a composite pun (cinas-ı mürekkeb). Much of the ghazal's effect depends on the wordplay of this first couplet. Of the four manuscripts, the ghazal is found only in manuscript Ü.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The poem opens with a small scene. The lover complains that he did not see the beloved's face at first sight; the beloved lifts her veil, uncovers her face and replies with a short phrase. The opening couplet thus turns into an exchange of words, and the verbs "didüm" (I said) and "didi" (she said) show its two sides. The beloved's reply "gör işte" presents the beloved, usually drawn in divan poetry as coy, distant and indifferent, this time as a bold and playful person.

In the second couplet there is a play between "zülf" (tress) and "şâne" (comb), and between "dil" (heart) and "dil" (tongue). The phrase "dilde vü dişde" in the second line says that the lover has become the talk of everyone because of his love. In the third couplet the words "göz gördi, göñül bildi" (the eye saw, the heart knew) set seeing and knowing in succession to describe the birth of love; the same verbs return at the end of the couplet in the form "bilişde görişde" and are used to say that no one took pity. The couplet thus acquires a structure that repeats the same two roots at the beginning and the end.

The fourth couplet rests on an idiom. Ömer Yılmaz writes that although the words seem disconnected, the couplet coincides with the Sufi principle "the hand at work, the heart with the beloved" and with the saying "the hand at work, the eye at play," and notes that Sufis use this saying to mean that even while occupied with worldly affairs the heart should not be parted from God. The plain meaning of the couplet in the context of love is the lover's request that the beloved, whose hand is on his collar, turn her eye to his condition as well. The words "el" (hand), "göz" (eye) and "yaḳa" (collar) form a congruence of images (tenasüp).

In the last couplet the beloved's glance, the "ġamze," is personified and addressed directly. Gülşen Kaya notes that the ġamze is one of the elements most often treated in the divan, that it is likened to an arrow, a sword and a dagger, and that the lover is content with the wounds of the ġamze in his heart, and she cites this couplet as an example. When the ġamze, like an arrow, has entered and left the liver, it has taken the soul with it; the lover asks that on its next coming the glance bring the soul back. The contrast between "gidicek" (when it left) and "gelişte" (on coming) leaves the ghazal suspended between going and returning.

Historical Context

This ghazal is among Mihrî's poems that were known in her own lifetime. Sehî Beg, a contemporary of the poet and a writer of a biographical anthology of poets (tezkire), opens the entry "Mihrî Hatun" in his work Heşt Bihişt by writing that she was from Amasya, that she presented many kasides and ghazals to Sultan Selim and Sultan Ahmed, that her poems were famous among the people and that her ghazals were recited among friends of the heart. He then gives, as the first examples of her verse, the first and third couplets of this ghazal, "Didüm yüzüñi görmedüm evvelki görişte" and "Göz gördi göñül bildi ki ben küşte-i ‘ışḳam." That Sehî chose these two couplets suggests that the ghazal was among the poems passing from tongue to tongue in the poet's time. The text quoted in the tezkire is nearly the same as the text in the edition; only "‘ışḳam" is read in place of "‘aşḳam." There is no information on whom the ghazal was written for.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Academic studies

Official sources

Books

  • Ömer Yılmaz, "Amasyalı Halvetî Mihrî Hâtun'da Hz. Peygamber Sevgisi", Prof. Dr. Ethem Cebecioğlu'na Armağan, Ankara: İlahiyat, 2023, p. 229-244.

Online sources