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

Ġam gicesinde geçdi günüm âh u vâh ile
Bir dem muṣâḥib olmadum ol yüzi mâh ile
Cürmüm nedür ḳatuñda senüñ bir gün ey felek
Kim hem-ser itmedüñ beni zülfi siyâh ile
Ḥecrüñ ġamında dil ne çeker şimdi dostum
Bir ben bilürem ancaḳ anı bir İlâh ile
Sen bî-vefâ firâḳıla cân irdi ḥulḳuma
Cânâ yoluñda çıḳsa gerek bir gün âh ile
Ṣûfî ḳatuñda ḫûbları sevmek günâh ise
Sen fâriġ ol ḳo ben yanayın ol günâh ile
Hey ġâfil olma ġamzelerinden güzellerüñ
Biñ şeyḫi yoldan eylediler bir nigâh ile
Mihrî Necâtî şi‘rine dirsin naẓîre lîk
Sen bir gedâ vü müflis o bir pâdişâh ile

In English

1. My days have passed in the night of grief, in sighs and cries; not for a moment did I keep company with that moon-faced one. (A muṣâḥib is a close companion who sits and converses with one. Night, day and the beloved's moon-like face are thought of together.)

2. O heaven, what is my offence in your sight, that not for one day did you bring me together with the one of the black tress? (Hem-ser means a mate, one who is head to head with another; because "ser" means "head," it is mentioned together with hair. Manuscript F reads "zülf-i siyâh," the black tress.)

3. My friend, what the heart now suffers in the grief of your separation, only I know, and one God. (Manuscript M reads "Zülfüñ" in place of "Hecrüñ": "in the grief of your tress.")

4. O faithless one, through separation from you my soul has reached my throat; beloved, one day it seems it will leave on your path with a sigh. (The soul reaching the throat means death is near.)

5. O ascetic, if loving the beautiful is a sin in your eyes, stay clear of it; let me burn with that sin. ("To burn" here suggests both burning with the fire of love and burning as the punishment of sin.)

6. Hey, do not be heedless of the languid glances of the beautiful; with a single look they led a thousand sheikhs from the path. (The ġamze is the beloved's sidelong glance, the languishing of the eye. In the second line manuscript M reads "ayıralar" in place of "eylediler.")

7. Mihrî, you say a nazire (response poem) to Necâtî's poem, but you are a poor beggar and he is a king. (A nazire is a response poem that one poet composes to another's poem in the same metre, rhyme and refrain.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The one hundred and sixtieth ghazal of the divan has seven couplets (beyit) and is written in the muzari' metre of aruz (quantitative metre), in the pattern "Mef‘ûlü Fâ‘ilâtü Mefâ‘îlü Fâ‘ilün". The redif (refrain word) is "ile", and the rhyme is the sound "-âh" in the words "vâh, mâh, siyâh, İlâh, âh, günâh, nigâh, pâdişâh". The pen name (mahlas) is in the last couplet, and Necâtî's name is mentioned in the same couplet. The ghazal is found in all four manuscripts (F, M, S, Ü), which suggests that the poem was one of the widely read pieces of the divan.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The first couplet is built on the contrast between night and day. The lover's "day" has passed in a "night of grief"; that is, separation has turned even his daytime into night. Gülşen Kaya uses this couplet to illustrate that in the divan grief is called night because of the distress and gloom it gives the heart. The mention of the beloved as moon-faced at the end of the line also fits with night: the lover has spent his night but has not been able to see the moon.

In the second couplet the lover reproaches the heavens. Kaya counts this among the couplets that draw a link between the blackness of the hair and the blackness of fortune. The closeness between "ser" (head) in "hem-ser" and "zülf" (tress) makes the wish to be head to head with the beloved thought of together with the hair. The third and fourth couplets carry the pain of separation as far as death; the soul has come to the throat and will leave with a sigh.

The fifth and sixth couplets turn to the types of the ascetic and the sheikh who condemn love. The lover seems to accept the ascetic's view that loving the beautiful is a sin, but chooses to burn with that "sin." In the sixth couplet it is said that a single glance of the beautiful has led a thousand sheikhs from the path. The contrast between "thousand" and "one" expresses the power of beauty in exaggerated language.

Historical Context

The historical importance of the ghazal comes from the last couplet. Here Mihrî names her own poem as a nazire to Necâtî. In his study comparing Mihrî's naziras to Necâtî, Metin Hakverdioğlu sets this ghazal beside Necâtî's ghazal beginning with the opening couplet "Aġla gözüm firâḳ ile derd ile âh ile / Kim yılduzuñ barışmadı gün yüzlü mâh ile." The two poems share metre, refrain and rhyme; Mihrî's opening couplet, like Necâtî's, closes with "mâh ile." Necâtî's ghazal also has the rhymes "günâh ile," "nigâh ile" and "pâdişâh ile." In this respect, Mihrî's naming of Necâtî as a "pâdişâh" in the last couplet is like showing respect to the master with his own rhyme word.

Gülşen Kaya notes that Necâtî is the poet most often mentioned in Mihrî's divan, that Mihrî mentions him in three places (in the forty-sixth and one hundred and sixtieth ghazals and in the tahmis), and says that in this couplet Mihrî expresses her respect for Necâtî's poetry. Sabiha Gemici likewise reads the couplet as the place where Mihrî accepts that she cannot match Necâtî in artistry and is inferior to him, and relays Nihad Sami Banarlı's remark that Mihrî's claim to match or rival Necâtî cannot be taken seriously. Hakverdioğlu, however, interprets the couplet from another angle: while Necâtî was a poet who won esteem in Istanbul, Mihrî, in the closed circle of Amasya, could only be this successful.

The couplet has also been read together with the tezkire accounts about the relationship between Mihrî and Necâtî. According to Latîfî, Necâtî wrote for Mihrî his quatrain (kıta) that begins "Ey benüm şi‘rüme naẓîre diyen" and rebukes a poet who composed a nazire to him. Enes İlhan questions the account by finding a note in a manuscript of Necâtî's Dîvân showing that this quatrain was written for Revânî, and he brings this couplet into his discussion. According to İlhan, in this couplet Mihrî acknowledges Necâtî's poetry and presents herself as inferior; this modesty does not fit with Necâtî having written a quatrain criticizing her and Mihrî not answering it. İlhan also relays views that connect women poets' presenting themselves as inferior to a quest for acceptance, but, recalling the self-confidence Mihrî shows in her other poems, he thinks this explanation is not sufficient for her.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Academic studies

  • Metin Hakverdioğlu, "Mihrî Hâtun'un Necâtî Bey'in Şiirlerine Nazîreleri", Turkish Studies 4/2 (Winter 2009), p. 522-551 (comparison with Necâtî p. 524-525; Necâtî CDLIII / Mihrî CLXIII, by the number in the author's own edition, p. 546-547), doi:10.7827/TurkishStudies.638.
  • Gülşen Kaya, Mihrî Hâtun Divânı'nın Tahlili, master's thesis, Fırat Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Elazığ 2010, p. 65-66 (Necâtî), p. 147 (tress and fortune), p. 270 (night of grief). https://openaccess.firat.edu.tr/xmlui/bitstream/handle/11508/16520/253984.pdf?sequence=1
  • Sabiha Gemici, Mihrî Hatun Divanı: Karşılaştırmalı Metin, Cümle Yapısı ve Cümle Türleri, doctoral thesis, Uludağ Üniversitesi, Balıkesir 1990, p. 31-32 (ghazal 163 in Gemici). https://archive.org/details/MihriHatunDivann
  • Enes İlhan, "Mihrî Hâtun mu Revânî mi? 'Ey Benüm Şiirüme Nazire Diyen' Kim?", Hikmet-Akademik Edebiyat Dergisi 10/20 (2024), p. 148-170. https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/article-file/3697235

Online sources