Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Ka‘be yüzinde nûrı görüp didi Aḥmed'e
Müzdüñe virelüm ṣalavâtı Muḥammed'e
İtdi ḥarîm-i kûyını ‘uşşâḳ-ı dil maḳâm
Bâb-ı Selâm oldı işigi muvaḥḥide
İster göñül ki kûyını her dem ṭavâf ide
Dîdâr'irer mücâvir olanlar çü Mekke'de
Merve ḥaḳı ṣafâsın anuñ ol bilür hemân
‘Aşḳı yolında ṣıdḳ ile ḳurbân-ı cân ide
İḥrâm itdüm egnime ‘aşḳı libâsını
Yeter cihânda cübbe de cennet de ḥulle de
Dil teşnesine zemzem-i la‘lin irürmese
Ḫâr-ı cefâda ölmiş idüm ben beriyyede
Mihrî süreli yüzin işigüñe dostum
Ḳalmadı meyli daḫi cinân-ı muḫallede

In English

1. Seeing the light in the Kaaba-like face, it was said to Ahmed: "In return for the reward, let us invoke blessings upon Muhammad." (The couplet can be read in two ways: if "Aḥmed" is taken as one of the names of the Prophet, the words are addressed to him; the name may also refer to the beloved or to some person. Müzd means wage, recompense, reward.)

2. The lovers of the heart have made the sanctuary of the beloved's quarter their station; for one who affirms God's oneness, her threshold has become the Gate of Peace (Bâb-ı Selâm). (Bâb-ı Selâm is the name of the gate by which pilgrims enter the Sacred Mosque.)

3. The heart wishes to circumambulate her quarter at every moment; for, as in Mecca, those who stay there as neighbours (mücavir), settled at her very door, attain the sight of the beloved's face.

4. By the right of Marwa, only the one who offers up his life sincerely on the road of her love knows her serenity. (Safâ means both pleasure of the heart and the hill of Safa, which faces Marwa.)

5. I have put on the garment of her love as my pilgrim's robe (ihram); in this world the cloak and in paradise the robe of honour are enough for me, or rather I need neither.

6. If she had not brought the zamzam of her ruby lip to my thirsting heart, I would have died among the thorns of cruelty in the desert.

7. Since Mihrî rubbed her face on your threshold, my friend, she has no inclination left even for the gardens of eternal paradise.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The 168th ghazal (gazel) of the divan has seven couplets (beyit) and is composed in the muzari metre of aruz (quantitative metre), in the pattern "Mef‘ûlü Fâ‘ilâtü Mefâ‘îlü Fâ‘ilün". The line endings close on the sounds "-e" and "-de": Aḥmed'e, Muḥammed'e, muvaḥḥide, Mekke'de, ide, ḥulle de, beriyyede, muḫallede. The rhyme (kafiye) scheme is looser than in the other ghazals of the divan, and the sounds rest on the similarity of the final syllables of the words. The poem is found, of the four manuscripts, only in the Ü manuscript. Mehmet Arslan, who prepared the edition, records a metrical irregularity in the first line of the fifth couplet; in a text resting on a single manuscript such faults are hard to correct. There is no information on whom or on what occasion the ghazal was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal is woven from start to finish with the concepts of the pilgrimage (hajj). Gülşen Kaya mentions this ghazal separately when studying the religious elements in Mihrî's divan and says that the poem is "woven entirely from pilgrimage elements." The beloved's face is the Kaaba, her quarter is the Haram, her threshold is Bâb-ı Selâm; the lover circumambulates her quarter, waits at her door like the neighbours (mücavir) who settle in Mecca, takes the garment of her love as her ihram, and quenches her thirst with the zamzam of her lip. Likening the beloved's face or quarter to the Kaaba is a common conceit (mazmun) in divan poetry; what Mihrî does in this ghazal is not to confine the comparison to a single couplet but to continue it through the stations of a whole pilgrimage. For this reason the poem can be read as a chain of metaphors (istiare) built by extending a single simile (teşbih).

The first couplet is the one most open to interpretation. The words said to Ahmed before the light seen in the Kaaba-like face call for blessings upon Muhammad. "Aḥmed" and "Muḥammed" are two names of the Prophet, and their meeting in the same couplet gives it a religious congruence of images (tenasüp). Ahmed is also the name of Şehzade Ahmed, the sanjak governor of Amasya, to whom Mihrî presented most of her kasides. Arslan says that, judging from their contents, three of her ghazals were presented to Şehzade Ahmed, but does not say which they are. For this ghazal there is no such record in the sources; whom the name points to here remains uncertain.

In the third couplet the word "dîdâr" (face, the sight of the beloved) is important. Kaya, in this couplet that speaks of the attainment of the beloved by neighbours devoted to worship in Mecca, recalls that in Sufism "dîdâr" describes the beauty of God. Thus the couplet, which seems written to a human beloved, opens also to divine love; this double aspect, so often seen in divan poetry, runs through the whole ghazal. Kaya points to the joint use of "Merve" and "ṣafâ" in the fourth couplet as an example of double entendre (tevriye): "ṣafâ" is both pleasure of the heart and the hill of Safa between which and Marwa pilgrims run. The phrase "ḳurbân-ı cân" (sacrificing one's life) in the same couplet also recalls the sacrifice in the pilgrimage.

In the fifth couplet the lover has taken the garment of love as her ihram. Kaya gives this couplet as an example of the garment of love being preferred over the cloak, which shows rank in this world, and over the robe of honour (hulle) worn in paradise. The ihram is the plain wrap that the pilgrim puts on after removing worldly clothes; the poet's likening of love to this plainness takes a stand against the cloak, a sign of office and rank. In the sixth couplet the zamzam is the beloved's ruby lip. Kaya counts this couplet, which says that if the beloved's zamzam-like lip did not reach the thirsty heart the lover would die among the thorns of cruelty in the desert, among the examples of the image of the heart's thirst. The desert is also the desert of the pilgrim road; so the couplet recalls the pilgrims' hard journey as well.

In the makta couplet Mihrî has rubbed her face on the beloved's threshold and no longer has any inclination for the gardens of eternal paradise. In Kaya's summary, the ghazal closes by saying that Mihrî, having rubbed her face on the beloved's threshold, has no inclination left for paradise. That even paradise should lose its worth beside the beloved's door is an indispensable claim of the lover in divan poetry; coming at the end of the pilgrimage images, it places the beloved's threshold above both the Kaaba and paradise.

Bibliography

  • Mehmet Arslan (ed.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları (Kültür Eserleri Dizisi 576), 2018, p. 139, Ghazal 168 (Ü 65b); introduction p. 6 (poems presented to Şehzade Ahmed). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr
  • Gülşen Kaya, Mihrî Hâtun Divânı'nın Tahlili, master's thesis, Fırat Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Elazığ 2010, pp. 41, 81-82, 210, 245. openaccess.firat.edu.tr