Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilün

Yoḳ ṣanurdum ‘âlem içre cân ile serden leẕîẕ
Hey neler varmış cihânda daḫi bunlardan leẕîẕ
Leẕẕetin işbu cihânuñ şimdi bildük ḥâṣılı
Yoġ imiş rûy-ı zemînde vaṣl-ı dilberden leẕîẕ
Leblerüñ sögdükçe cânâ aġzuma şekker yaġar
Şöyle şîrîn loḳmadur pâlûde-i terden leẕîẕ
‘Āşıḳa baş aġrıdup ‘arż itme nâṣiḥ cenneti
Leblerin ṣorduḳ nigâruñ âb-ı kevs̱erden leẕîẕ
Şimdi bir ṭûṭî-kelâma mübtelâdur Mihrî kim
Söylese şîrîn sözi ḳand-i mükerrerden leẕîẕ

In English

1. I thought there was nothing in the world sweeter than life and head; what things there turn out to be in the world sweeter than these. (Life and head are named as the things a person values most.)

2. In short, we now know the taste of this world: there is nothing on the face of the earth sweeter than union with the beloved.

3. Beloved, whenever your lips curse me, sugar rains into my mouth; it is such a sweet morsel, more delicious than fresh palude. (Palude is a sweet of jelly-like consistency made with starch and fruit juice. Even the beloved's bad word is sweet to the lover. With the reading "yaḳar" in manuscripts F and S: it burns my mouth with sugar.)

4. O counsellor, do not trouble the lover's head by describing paradise; we asked about the beloved's lips, and they are sweeter than the water of Kevser. (Kevser is the sacred water believed to be in paradise. Manuscript M reads "vâ‘iẓ", a preacher, in place of "nâṣiḥ".)

5. Mihrî is now enamoured of one who speaks sweetly like a parrot; when she speaks, her sweet word is more delicious than the finest sugar. ("Ṭûṭî-kelâm" means one who speaks beautifully like a parrot. "Ḳand-i mükerrer" is thoroughly refined white sugar.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The seventeenth ghazal (gazel) has five couplets (beyit) and is written in the metre "Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilün". The redif (refrain word) is the word "leẕîẕ" (delicious, sweet); the sounds "-rden" before the redif form the rhyme (serden, bunlardan, dilberden, terden, kevs̱erden, mükerrerden). Every couplet ends in the pattern "-den lezîz", and the whole ghazal thus becomes a series of comparisons: in each couplet one thing is said to be sweeter than another. Because the last letter of the redif is ẕel, the poem is in the section "Ḥarfü'ẕ-Ẕâl" in the edition. It is found in all four manuscripts (F 36b, M 51a, S 39a, Ü 31a). It is not known to whom it was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal opens with the astonishment of one who has discovered the taste of the world. The lover, who thought nothing was more valuable than life and head, has learned that sweeter things exist. The second couplet answers this astonishment: there is nothing on earth sweeter than union with the beloved (vaṣl-ı dilber). Gülşen Kaya cites this couplet where union is described in the divan as a gift too beautiful and precious to be believed; according to Kaya, the flavour and meaning of the world is this moment of union too.

The third couplet is the most striking of the ghazal. The beloved's lips curse the lover, but these curses make sugar rain into the lover's mouth and become a morsel sweeter than fresh palude. Kaya notes that the beloved is one who is cruel and shows no compliments to the lover, while the lover consents even to her tyranny; so even the bad words that come from the beloved's mouth are sugar and sweetness to the lover. The antithesis between cursing and sugar makes the couplet both witty and sincere. Palude is one of the sweets of Ottoman cuisine. Gökçehan Aysel Yılmaz reports that dictionaries define it as a jelly-type sweet made from starch and fruit juices, while according to Priscilla Mary Işın it was sweetened with grape juice, honey and sugar and prepared with saffron, rose water, musk and plenty of almonds.

In the fourth couplet the counsellor (nâṣıḥ) tries to dissuade the lover from love by describing paradise. The lover replies by saying that the beloved's lips are sweeter than the water of Kevser. Kaya notes that Kevser is mentioned together with paradise and the water of life (âb-ı hayat), and that when the beloved's lip is likened to Kevser the lip's superiority is stressed. There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) between paradise and Kevser, and a subtle contrast between the counsellor's paradise and the lover's lip. The reading "vâ‘iẓ" in manuscript M turns the identity of the one who gives counsel into a preacher.

In the pen-name couplet (makta) the beloved is called "ṭûṭî-kelâm", one who speaks beautifully like a parrot. According to Kaya, the parrot is mentioned in the divan for its beautiful speech and its eating of sugar, and in this couplet it is used to say that the beloved speaks sweetly. "Şîrîn söz" (sweet word) and "ḳand-i mükerrer" come side by side; Yılmaz notes that the expression "kand-ı mükerrer" corresponds to the white sugar called "kelle şekeri" (sugarloaf). With the words sugar, palude, morsel, şîrîn, ḳand and Kevser the ghazal is built from beginning to end on a congruence of tastes.

Ghazals with the Redif "Lezîz"

The redif "lezîz" is among the favoured refrains of classical Turkish poetry. Yılmaz identified 38 ghazals with the redif "lezîz" in the divans of 37 poets who lived between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries, examined 52 couplets of them, and showed that in these the beloved's lip is compared to sweets such as sugar, honey, sherbet, halva, palude, güllaç and gülbeşeker. In this survey, Necâtî Bey, Ahmed Paşa and Hamdullah Hamdî appear from the fifteenth century; Mihrî's ghazal did not fall within the scope of the study. According to Yılmaz's count, the word most often associated with the lip in these couplets is "şeker" (sugar), occurring 21 times; it is followed by "kand-ı mükerrer" with 10 occurrences, while palude is mentioned six times. Mihrî's ghazal, which uses all the images of sugar, palude and kand-i mükerrer, can be counted among the early examples of this tradition, since it came from the hand of a poet who lived in the same century as Necâtî and Ahmed Paşa.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Mehmet Arslan (ed.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları (Kültür Eserleri Dizisi 576), 2018, pp. 59-60, Gazel 17 (F 36b, M 51a, S 39a, Ü 31a) and the footnotes on manuscript variants. ekitap.ktb.gov.tr

Academic studies

  • Gülşen Kaya, Mihrî Hâtun Divânı'nın Tahlili, master's thesis, Fırat Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Elazığ 2010 (entries on Kevser, union, lip and parrot). openaccess.firat.edu.tr
  • Gökçehan Aysel Yılmaz, "'Lezîz' Redifli Gazellerde Sevgilinin Dudağının Tatlı Yiyeceklerle İlişkisi", Uluslararası Türkçe Edebiyat Kültür Eğitim Dergisi 10/3 (2021), pp. 926-942.

Online sources