Özgün Metin

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

Ġamı deryâya ṣalup ḫurrem olalum gemide
Bâḳi ḳalmaz çü cihân ḫoş görelüm bu demi de
N'ola çekdiyse gözüm yaşları deryâya beni
Ġarḳa virmişdi gözüm zevraḳın evvel nemi de
Rûzgâruñ elemiyle nice bir aġlayavuz
Rûzgâr ilte kenâra bulavuz hem-demi de
Açalum ‘aşḳ hevâsıyla bu dil yelkenini
Çekelüm lenger-i hicrânı ḳoyalum ġamı da
‘Āşıḳa dirler idi ṣabr gerek yâ ḫo sefer
Bu kelâm ḥaḳḳı budur gerçek imiş âdemîde
İtdi gerçi ki felek Mihrî vaṭandan seni dûr
Ġurbetüñ ḫoşça imiş ḫayli dile ‘âlemi de
Dil-i mecrûḥuña ġam çekme ki bir gün dem ola
Bulasın ġurbet elinde aña sen merhemi de

In English

1. Let us cast grief into the sea and be glad aboard the ship; since the world does not last, let us take this moment too as pleasant and enjoy it. (Ḫurrem means joyful, cheerful.)

2. No wonder if my tears have drawn me into the sea; the moisture of my eye, that is, its tears, had sunk the boat of my eye even before. (A zevrak is a small boat. The eye full of tears is likened to a boat sinking in a sea of tears.)

3. How long shall we weep over the pain of Rûzgâr (the wind, fate)? If only the wind would carry us to the shore, so that we might find a companion. (Rûzgâr means both "wind" and "time, the world, fortune"; the couplet uses both meanings together. A hem-dem is a soul's companion.)

4. Let us open the sail of this heart with the breeze of love; let us weigh the anchor of separation and leave grief behind too. (A lenger is a ship's anchor. To weigh anchor means to set out. "Hevâ" means both air, wind, and desire, passion.)

5. They used to say to the lover, "Either patience or a journey is needed"; the truth of this saying turns out to be so, it really holds for human beings. (Sefer means journey. The saying means that the lover must either bear his pain or go away. The second line can also be understood as: "This saying is really true; such a condition exists in the sons of Adam.")

6. Mihrî, although heaven has put you far from your homeland, the world of exile, it turns out, is quite pleasing to the heart. (Mehmet Arslan also reads the second line as "to some hearts the world of exile may seem pleasant.")

7. Do not grieve for your wounded heart; a day will come when you find a balm for it in the land of exile too.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The one hundred and sixty-first ghazal of the divan has seven 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 redif (refrain word) is "de" (da), and the rhyme is the sound "-emi" in the words "demi, nemi, hem-demi, âdemî, ‘âlemi, merhemi". The "ġamı da" in the fourth couplet does not fit this sound exactly; it has been read in this form in the edition. The pen name (mahlas), unlike what is usual in ghazals, is in the sixth couplet, and the last couplet comes after the pen name as a consolation the poet speaks to herself. The ghazal is found only in the Istanbul University (Ü) manuscript.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The whole of the ghazal is built on a picture of a sea voyage. Mehmet Arslan lists the words in the poem "deryâ, deryâya salmak, gemi, garka vermek, zevrak, nem, rüzgâr, kenâr, kenâra iletmek, hevâ, yelken, yelken açmak, lenger, hicran, sefer, vatan, gurbet, vatandan dûr olmak" (sea, to cast into the sea, ship, to sink, boat, moisture, wind, shore, to carry to shore, breeze, sail, to set sail, anchor, separation, journey, homeland, exile, to be far from the homeland) and says they describe the state of mind of a lover who goes into exile and makes his journey by ship. There is a close congruence of images (tenasüp) among these words, and the poem advances by applying sea vocabulary to the lover's inner world.

In the second couplet the eye is a boat sinking in a sea of tears. Gülşen Kaya gives this couplet as an example in which the eye is imagined in the divan as a boat drowning in the sea of tears, thereby expressing how much the lover weeps. The couplet also contains a fantastic etiology (hüsn-i ta‘lil): the poet finds a poetic reason for the journey by saying that what has dragged her into the sea is her tears. In the third couplet the word "rûzgâr" is used twice with two different meanings. The first recalls fortune and the age, the second the wind that drives the ship to shore.

The fourth couplet is the most often cited of the ghazal. With this couplet Kaya shows separation being mentioned as an anchor, a ship's anchor that prevents the lover from making headway; she also gives the same couplet as an example in which the heart is likened to a ship and opens its sail with the breeze of love. Weighing the anchor of separation and leaving grief completes the idea at the beginning of the poem, "casting grief into the sea."

The fifth couplet, as Arslan also notes, rests on an old saying that is still spoken today in the form "either endurance or a journey." In her own reading Sabiha Gemici gives the line as "sabr gerek yâhûd sefer" and shows that the same saying is repeated in Mihrî's one hundred and ninety-second ghazal in the form "Didiler lâzım durur ‘uşşâḳa ṣabr u yâ sefer." In that ghazal too the poet chooses, in place of patience, "terk-i diyâr," that is, leaving the homeland. In the last two couplets exile appears alongside pain as a consolation and a possibility of healing.

Historical Context

Mehmet Arslan ties this ghazal to the possibility that Mihrî Hatun spent some time in Istanbul. According to him, the saying "either patience or a journey" in the fifth couplet and the hints in the other couplets can be evaluated as evidence that the poet made a journey by ship and left her homeland for exile; this land of exile is most probably Istanbul. Arslan regards the expressions in the sixth and seventh couplets as indications that Mihrî perhaps left her homeland because of the pain of love and hoped to find consolation there.

Arslan discusses this possibility together with other clues. In the closing couplet of Mihrî's one hundred and seventy-sixth ghazal she laments that her life was spent in Amasya and mentions Istanbul; Mehmed Zihnî Efendi in Meşâhîrü'n-Nisâ speaks of her as "Mihrî, one of the women of letters of Istanbul"; and in Zâtî's Letâ’if there is the note "Amâsiyyelü bir şâ‘ire var idi, Mihrî Hâtûn dirlerdi, İstanbul'da olurdı." Yet Arslan states plainly that whether Mihrî went to Istanbul cannot be established with certainty even by himself, and adds that even if she went, she returned to Amasya, because all the important sources say that she died and was buried in Amasya.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Mehmet Arslan (ed.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları (Kültür Eserleri Dizisi 576), 2018, p. 135, Gazel 161; introduction p. 7-9 (interpretation of the ghazal in terms of exile and sea voyage, the Istanbul possibility). https://ekitap.ktb.gov.tr/Eklenti/58679,mihri-hatun-divanipdf.pdf

Academic studies

Online sources