Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Vezin: Mef‘ûlü Mefâ‘îlü Mefâ‘îlü Fa‘ûlün

Yâ Rab n'ola ḥâlüm benüm ol yâr giderse
Ḥasretle ḳalam niçeye dek zâr giderse
Bülbül gibi ḳurbân olayın ḫâr-ı cefâda
Sen ruḫları gül ṣûreti gülzâr giderse
‘Ahdine vefâ ḳılmadı ol yâr nidem âh
Ḳanlar yudayın derd ile her bâr giderse
Ḳoydum ben elüm ile benüm başuma ḫâki
Baġruma baṣayın ṭaşı nâ-çâr giderse
Terk eyle seni terk ideni sen daḫi Mihrî
Aġyâra ḳoyup seni o bî-‘âr giderse

In English

1. O Lord, what will become of me if that beloved goes; if she goes, how long shall I remain in longing, lamenting?

2. O you whose cheeks are roses, whose appearance is a rose garden, if you go, let me be sacrificed like the nightingale on the thorn of cruelty.

3. That beloved did not keep faith with her promise, ah, what can I do; with every departure of hers, may I swallow blood in grief (may I suffer great pain).

4. I have put earth on my own head with my own hand (I have mourned); if she goes, helpless, let me press a stone to my breast (let me endure the pain).

5. Mihrî, if that shameless one goes, leaving you to the rivals, abandon in turn the one who abandoned you.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The 172nd ghazal (gazel) of the divan has five couplets (beyit) and is composed in the hezec metre of aruz (quantitative metre), in the pattern "Mef‘ûlü Mefâ‘îlü Mefâ‘îlü Fa‘ûlün". Its redif (refrain word) is "giderse"; the rhyme (kafiye) is built on the sound "-âr": yâr, zâr, gülzâr, bâr, nâ-çâr, bî-‘âr. The poem is found in manuscripts M and Ü. Mehmet Arslan, who prepared the edition, notes a metrical irregularity in the first line of the third couplet; in M the second line of the same couplet reads "yutayın" in place of "yudayın", and the second line of the fourth couplet reads "baṣayım" in place of "baṣayın". In the table where Sıtkı Nazik lists Mihrî's redifs, the redif "giderse" is seen in only this ghazal of the divan. There is no information on whom or on what occasion the ghazal was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

All the couplets of the ghazal are built on a conditional sentence ending in the redif "giderse". The beloved has not yet gone; the poem lists, couplet by couplet, the fear that the possibility of her going awakens in the lover and what the lover will do in the face of it. In the first couplet the complaint, which begins with the address "Yâ Rab", asks how long a life spent lamenting in longing after the separation will last.

The second couplet rests on the conceit of rose and nightingale. The beloved's cheeks are a rose, her appearance a rose garden; the lover is the nightingale. Gülşen Kaya notes that in Mihrî's divan the nightingale of the soul gives its life for a beloved whose hair is a hyacinth and whose eye is a rose, and sometimes is sacrificed in longing for the beloved on the thorn of cruelty, and she gives this couplet as an example. In divan poetry the rose is thought of together with the thorn; the nightingale that loves the rose has to bear its thorn. That the nightingale is sacrificed on the thorn when the rose goes is a way of thinking of the pain of separation as a death. The use of "gül" and "gülzâr" in the same line, and the presence together of the words nightingale, rose, thorn and rose garden, form a congruence of images (tenasüp) in the couplet.

The third and fourth couplets list the bodily counterparts of the pain. At each departure of the beloved who does not keep her word the lover "swallows blood"; in the old language this phrase means silently swallowing a great pain. "To put earth on one's head" in the fourth couplet is the name of one of the old mourning customs; "to press a stone to one's breast" is an idiom still used today and describes enduring pain with clenched teeth. The use of the two idioms in the same couplet, with earth and stone in corresponding places, gives the couplet a balanced structure. In this couplet Mihrî expresses abstract pain through concrete gestures that ordinary people also know.

The makta couplet changes the mood of the ghazal. The lover, who in the earlier couplets was helpless in the face of separation, addresses herself in the last couplet and says "abandon the one who abandoned you." Calling the beloved "bî-‘âr", that is shameless, impudent, and her leaving the lover to the rivals turn the reproach into a matter of honour. The repetition of "terk eyle" and "terk ideni" in the same line is a repetition of a word in different forms and stresses the firmness of the decision. In divan poetry the lover usually appears ready to accept every cruelty of the beloved; this makta couplet carries a more stubborn voice that is occasionally seen in Mihrî's poems.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Mehmet Arslan (ed.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları (Kültür Eserleri Dizisi 576), 2018, p. 141, Ghazal 172 (M 90a, Ü 66b). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr

Academic studies

  • Gülşen Kaya, Mihrî Hâtun Divânı'nın Tahlili, master's thesis, Fırat Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Elazığ 2010, p. 168. openaccess.firat.edu.tr
  • 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. 137.

Online sources