Özgün Metin

Vezin: Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilün

Şöyle ditrer cân u dil her laḥẓa cânân üstine
Nitekim pervâne ditrer şem‘-i tâbân üstine
Derd ile cân bülbüli billah nice cân virmesün
Bir ṣaçı sünbül yüzi gül berg-i ḫandân üstine
Zâhidüñ iġmâż-ı ‘ayn itdügi maḥbûbı görüp
Bil şuña beñzer bu ḫar-gâv bindi urġan üstine
Ḳâḍî vü müftî müderris zâhid ü pîr ü cüvân
Ḳanġısı cân virmedi maḥbûb oġlan üstine
Şem‘-i ruḫsârına cânânuñ yüri pervâne-veş
Sen i Mihrî cân virüp her dem-be-dem yan üstine

In English

1. Soul and heart tremble at every moment over the beloved just as the moth trembles over the bright candle. (The pervane is the small moth that flies to light and fire and burns. The lover is likened to the moth, and the beloved's face to the candle flame.)

2. By God, how should the nightingale of the soul not give up its life through pain, over one whose hair is hyacinth and whose face is a laughing rose petal? (The nightingale stands for the lover and the rose for the beloved's face. "Berg-i ḫandân" is an opened rose petal that seems to laugh; the hyacinth is likened to curling hair.)

3. On seeing the beloved whom the ascetic pretends not to see, know that it is like this: this "ḫar-gâv" has climbed up on the rope. (İġmâż-ı ‘ayn is closing the eye, that is, ignoring. Ḫar-gâv is a Persian compound of the words for donkey and ox; here it seems to be used to belittle a coarse and obtuse person. The couplet can be read in two ways: the ascetic's pretence of not looking at the beautiful is as ridiculous a show as the state of an animal that has climbed on its own rope; or the ascetic who ignores the beautiful has bound himself like an animal standing on its own tether and unable to move. The saying on which the comparison rests is not explained in the sources.)

4. Judge, mufti, teacher at the madrasa, ascetic, old and young: which of them did not give his life over a beautiful boy? ("To give one's life" here means to love to the point of dying for someone. The couplet shows even the most respected representatives of the religious and learned professions as helpless before beauty.)

5. Mihrî, go, go like a moth to the candle of the beloved's cheek; give your life at every moment and burn over it. (Ruhsâr is the cheek and the face. The word "yan" is the imperative of the verb "to burn.")

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The one hundred and fifty-ninth ghazal of the divan has five couplets (beyit) and is written in the ramal metre of aruz (quantitative metre), in the pattern "Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilün". The redif (refrain word) is "üstine", and the rhyme is the sound "-ân / -an" in the words "cânân, tâbân, ḫandân, urġan, oġlan, yan". The pen name (mahlas) is in the last couplet. The ghazal is found only in the Istanbul University (Ü) manuscript. According to Sıtkı Nazik's table, the refrain "üstine" is used in the divan in this ghazal and in the one hundred and fifty-second ghazal. There is no record of whom it was written for.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal is framed in its first and last couplets by the same image: candle and moth. In the first couplet soul and heart tremble over the beloved as the moth trembles over the bright candle. Gülşen Kaya uses this couplet to illustrate that in the divan the beloved's face, called by compounds such as "şem‘-i tâbân" (bright candle), is likened to a candle for its burning and shining side, and she also gives the same couplet among the examples in which the moth represents the lover who throws himself into the fire knowing he will burn. The explicit comparison built with the word "nitekim" (just as) is an example of simile (teşbih). In the last couplet the poet turns to herself and advises herself to go to the beloved's cheek like a moth and burn over it. Thus the moth-like condition that remained a comparison in the first couplet becomes a resolution in the last.

The second couplet rests on the rose-and-nightingale conceit. Kaya cites this couplet in explaining that the hyacinth resembles braided hair with its closely set florets and is often used with hair in the divan. The soul is imagined as the nightingale, the hair as the hyacinth and the face as the rose petal; a garden scene is composed. There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) among the words nightingale, hyacinth, rose and berg (petal).

The third and fourth couplets change the tone of the ghazal. The ascetic who condemns love and beauty is a type that often stands against the lover in divan poetry. Here the ascetic's ignoring of the beautiful is mocked with a coarse comparison. In the fourth couplet the mockery widens: the judge, the mufti, the madrasa teacher, the ascetic, the old and the young are listed in turn and none is said to be able to resist beauty. The couplet says that even those who present themselves as withdrawn from the world are no different from ordinary people before love, and it prepares the ground for the moth simile of the last couplet.

A Poem on the Same Ground

In his study comparing Mihrî's naziras to the poems of Necâtî, Metin Hakverdioğlu sets this ghazal beside Necâtî's ghazal with the refrain "üstine" in the same metre, rhyme and refrain. Hakverdioğlu's criterion is that the two poems are very close to each other in rhyme, refrain, metre and content. Necâtî's ghazal too has rhymes such as "ḫurşîd-i tâbân üstine" and "serv-i ḫırâmân üstine", and in one couplet the poet addresses the ascetic and says, "Sû-i zan itmek ne lâzım bir müselmân üstine." In this respect the ascetic couplets of Mihrî's ghazal run along the same line as Necâtî's ground; but Mihrî spreads the mockery over a wider circle by listing the ascetic together with the judge, the mufti and the madrasa teacher.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Academic studies

  • Metin Hakverdioğlu, "Mihrî Hâtun'un Necâtî Bey'in Şiirlerine Nazîreleri", Turkish Studies 4/2 (Winter 2009), p. 522-551 (method p. 526-527; comparison: Necâtî DXXXV / Mihrî CLXII, by the number in the author's own edition, p. 547-549), doi:10.7827/TurkishStudies.638.
  • Gülşen Kaya, Mihrî Hâtun Divânı'nın Tahlili, master's thesis, Fırat Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Elazığ 2010, p. 133 (candle), p. 146 (hyacinth), p. 281 (moth). https://openaccess.firat.edu.tr/xmlui/bitstream/handle/11508/16520/253984.pdf?sequence=1
  • Sıtkı Nazik, "Benzer Redifli Şiirleri Bağlamında Mihrî Hatun ve Tâcî-zâde Cafer Çelebi'nin Karşılaştırılması", Uluslararası Amasya Âlimleri Sempozyumu Bildiriler Kitabı II, Amasya 2017, p. 133-148 (table of refrains in Mihrî's divan: "üstine", G.152, G.159). https://isamveri.org/pdfdrg/G00226/2017/2017_NAZIKS.pdf

Online sources