Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilün

İtmedi vaṣlı metâ‘ına o cân yârlıġı
Dil virüp eylemişüz gerçi ḫarîdârlıġı
Niçün ey dost bu efġânuma gûş eylemedüñ
Bülbülüñ ḫoş mı gelür yoḫsa güle zârlıġı
Bülbül aġlar gül içün ḫâr miyânını ḳocar
Virmesün kimselere dünyede nâ-çârlıġı
Yüzüme güldügiçün şişlere sancar güli ḫâr
Nidelüm ol ḫo ḳomaz ḳandasa aġyârlıġı
Mihrî dil-ḫasteden ey dost çevürme yüzüñi
Gel unutma ṣanemâ eski vefâ-dârlıġı

In English

1. That beloved, dear as life, showed us no friendship when selling the wares of union, though we had given our hearts and become the buyers. (Meeting the beloved is likened to goods sold in a market, and the lover to a customer who offers his heart as the price. One manuscript reads "cân" in place of "vaṣlı".)

2. Why, O friend, did you not lend an ear to this lament of mine? Does the nightingale's wailing please the rose?

3. The nightingale weeps for the rose and embraces the waist of the thorn; may God give no one helplessness in this world.

4. Because the rose smiled at me, that is, opened to me, the thorn pierces it on skewers; what can we do, such a nature gives up its enmity wherever it may be.

5. O friend, do not turn your face from Mihrî, sick at heart; come, O idol of beauty, do not forget the old faithfulness.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The one hundred and seventy-eighth ghazal (gazel) has five couplets (beyit) and is composed in the remel metre of aruz (quantitative metre), in the pattern "Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilün". The redif (refrain word) is the suffix "-lıġı"; the rhyme (kafiye) is built on the sound "-âr": yâr, ḫarîdâr, zâr, nâ-çâr, aġyâr, vefâ-dâr. Each couplet therefore closes with a noun ending in "-ârlıġı" that names a state or a manner of conduct: friendship, buying, wailing, helplessness, enmity, faithfulness. The ghazal is in the Yâ section of the Divan and appears in three manuscripts in the Arslan edition. It is not known for whom it was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet describes love in the language of commerce. Gülşen Kaya observes that in the Divan the beloved's beauty is expressed as a precious "metâ‘", that is, goods, and that the buyer and customer of these goods is the lover, and she cites this couplet as an example. The lover has paid his heart as the price, but the seller has not handed over the goods and has not behaved as a friend. There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) among the words metâ‘, ḫarîdâr and dil virmek (to give one's heart); the similarity in sound between "yârlık" and "ḫarîdârlık" also tightens the couplet's construction.

From the second couplet to the fourth, the ghazal works with the triad of rose, nightingale and thorn of Divan poetry. The rose is the beloved, the nightingale the lover, and the thorn the rival. In the second couplet the lover asks whether the nightingale's lament is pleasing to the rose; it is implied that the beloved may take pleasure in the lover's pain. Kaya mentions the third couplet among the Divan's conceptions of rose, thorn and nightingale: as the thorn is always beside the rose, so the rival is always beside the beloved, and it falls to the lover to sigh and lament like the nightingale. The nightingale's embracing the thorn for the rose's sake is a likeness of the lover's being forced to endure the rival in order to reach the beloved. The line ends in a prayer, "may God give no one helplessness", and the couplet is closed with a general judgment like a proverb.

The fourth couplet takes the scene a step further. As Kaya also points out, here the thorn wounds the rose as well as the nightingale: because the rose smiled, that is, opened, to the lover, the thorn pierces it on skewers. The verb "gülmek" also describes the opening of a rose; there is wordplay (cinas) between gül and güldü in the couplet and antithesis between gül and hâr. The rival's jealousy is shown here as a nature that punishes even the beloved. One manuscript reads the line "Yüzine", that is, "to his face"; in that case the person at whom the rose smiled would be the thorn itself.

In the closing couplet (makta) Mihrî calls herself "dil-ḫaste", sick at heart, and asks the beloved not to turn away her face. The words "do not forget the old faithfulness" in the last line suggest that the poem points to a closeness lived in the past; but since there is no record of whom it was said to, the couplet should be read within the ghazal's general language of love.

Bibliography

  • Mehmet Arslan (hzl.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları (Kültür Eserleri Dizisi 576), 2018, p. 144, Gazel 178 (F 72b, S 74a, Ü 67b). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr
  • Gülşen Kaya, Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı'nın Tahlili, master's thesis, Fırat Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Elazığ 2010, pp. 135, 202, 284. openaccess.firat.edu.tr