Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Metre: Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilün
Ben ne resm-i kevn ile mersûm olaydum kâşkî
Bu cihâna gelmeyüp ma‘dûm olaydum kâşkî
Geçdi ‘ömrüm rûzgâruñ şiddetiyle her zamân
Ben bu cândan âh ezel maḥrûm olaydum kâşkî
Ḳıllet ile ẕillet ile ögilüp her bâbda
Ṣoñra ‘izz ü nâz ile maḫdûm olaydum kâşkî
Bülbül olup kârı dilde her dem efġân olmadan
Ḫûb idi vîrânelerde bûm olaydum kâşkî
Muttaṣıl ġam ḫânesinde cân ‘aẕâb ile geçer
İrmeyeydüm bu güne maḥrûm olaydum kâşkî
Bunca ma‘lûmât ile meşhûr olınca ‘âleme
Dürlü mechûlât ile meẕmûm olaydum kâşkî
Şimdi ki ḫalḳuñ ḳatında Türklükdür i‘tibâr
Keşlü tarḫanalarında s̱ûm olaydum kâşkî
Ḳandasa nâ-ehle virürmiş murâdını felek
Mihrî ben de cehl ile ma‘lûm olaydum kâşkî
In English
1. If only I had never been drawn into the picture of the world of being, that is, never created; if only I had not come into this world and had stayed non-existent.
2. My life has always passed under the violence of time. Ah, if only I had been deprived of this soul from pre-eternity, if only no life had ever been given me. ("Rûzgâr" means both time, an age, and the wind that blows.)
3. If only I had first been spoken of in every respect with want and contempt, and afterwards been a master served in honour and delicate favour.
4. Rather than be a nightingale whose business at every moment in the heart is lament, it would have been better, if only, to be an owl in the ruins.
5. The soul passes ceaselessly in torment in the house of grief. If only I had never reached these days, if only I had been deprived of them.
6. Rather than be famed in the world for so much knowledge, if only I had been reviled for various kinds of ignorance.
7. Since now, in the eyes of the people, esteem lies in being Turkish (that is, coarse, rustic, unlettered), if only I were a clove of garlic in their tarhana with keş. (Keş is dried yoghurt or curd cheese; "s̱ûm" means garlic.)
8. Wherever it is, it seems that fate gives its desire to the unworthy. O Mihrî, if only I too were known for ignorance.
Literary and Historical Commentary
Structure of the Poem
The one hundred and eighty-second ghazal (gazel) of the Divan has eight couplets (beyit) and is composed in the remel metre of aruz (quantitative metre), in the pattern "Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilün". Every couplet ends with the redif (refrain word) "kâşkî" (if only), and the rhyme (kafiye) is formed by words closing with the sound "-ûm": mersûm, ma‘dûm, maḥrûm, maḫdûm, bûm, meẕmûm, s̱ûm, ma‘lûm. That the redif is a wish-mood repeated at the end of every line makes the ghazal flow from beginning to end in a language of regret. In Arslan's edition the ghazal is shown in the Ü manuscript alone. Didem Havlioğlu, for her part, cites the seventh couplet from a manuscript in the Süleymaniye Library (T 3974, 155b), with a slightly different reading. There is no record of whom the ghazal was written for or on what occasion.
Mihrî's Divan contains a second ghazal with the same redif: the one hundred and ninety-first, beginning "Dergehinde ol şehüñ ma‘lûm olaydum kâşkî". In his tezkire (biographical anthology of poets), Âşık Çelebi quotes couplets from that ghazal as well when giving examples of Mihrî's poems. The two ghazals share rhyme and redif, and garlic (s̱ûm) occurs in both; but in the other the wishes express the desire to be near the beloved's gate, while in this one a pessimistic voice speaks, wishing never to have come into the world.
Meaning and Figures of Speech
The ghazal's main feeling is weariness and reproach. Gülşen Kaya says that the state of exhaustion in Mihrî reaches its limit in this ghazal with the redif "kâşkî": the poet wishes not to have come into the world and to have stayed non-existent, to be first humiliated and afterwards indulged, to be an owl in the ruins rather than moan like a nightingale, to be known for obscurity rather than famous for her knowledge. In Kaya's summary, since fate gives its wish to the unworthy, it is best to be known for ignorance. Complaint against fate is a common subject in Divan poetry, but here the complaint is directed less at the pain of love than at the lack of recognition of worth; the poet complains of a world in which her own knowledge and poetry find no response.
The couplets are built on opposed concepts. In the third couplet "ḳıllet ü ẕillet" (scarcity and abasement) is set against "‘izz ü nâz" (eminence and delicate favour), and in the sixth "ma‘lûmât" (things known) against "mechûlât" (things unknown), "meşhûr" (famed) against "meẕmûm" (reviled). These antitheses carry the ghazal's idea of an inverted world: knowledge is condemned, ignorance rewarded. The contrast of nightingale and owl in the fourth couplet is tied to the same thought. In Divan poetry the nightingale is the lover of the rose and the bird of art and refinement; the owl is thought an ill-omened bird that lives in ruins. Kaya observes that in this couplet the poet, complaining that her worth is not recognized while she is a nightingale, says "if only I had been an owl". The word "rûzgâr" in the second couplet can be read with both meanings, time and wind; that life passes under the violence of the wind turns the harshness of time into a concrete image.
The most discussed couplet of the ghazal is the seventh. Kaya writes that being Turkish is used here in the Divan as an indicator of ignorance, that the esteem Turkishness enjoys among the common people is criticized, and that the relation set up between Turkishness and tarhana is interesting. According to her, tarhana occurs in the Divan only in this couplet and, in a use outside the classical structure, has become an expression of Turkishness. The word "Türk" here must be read not in its present national sense but in the sense it carried in the urban literary circles of the time, that is, a rustic, nomadic, coarse and unlettered person.
Didem Havlioğlu begins her article on Ottoman women poets with this couplet and interprets it as an example that shows the marginal place of the woman poet in the literary milieu. According to Havlioğlu, at the end of the fifteenth century the word "Türk" meant "beautiful" as well as nomad or villager, so that the first line implies that for ordinary people the only value in poetry is surface beauty. In the second line the poet wishes to be garlic in tarhana, a cheap and ordinary food of the people. Havlioğlu reads this as the poet presenting herself as an unusual flavour that ordinary people could not stomach, and takes the "soup" of the tarhana as the counterpart of common poetry and the garlic as that of the woman poet who has no place in such poetry. The same author sees a congruence of images (tenasüp) in the couplet as well: that one of the synonyms of garlic is "Türk-i rustayan" explains the tie between Turk and garlic that looks odd at first sight. This interpretation is one researcher's reading, but the mocking tone of the couplet can also be heard plainly from the text itself.
The closing couplet (makta) unties the knot of the ghazal. If fate gives its desire to the unworthy, Mihrî too wishes to be known for ignorance. The expression "ma‘lûm olmak" (to be known) comes from the same root as the word "ma‘lûmât" (things known) in the sixth couplet; the poet wishes to be "known" not for her knowledge but for her ignorance. This wordplay gathers the bitter irony of the ghazal once more in the last line.
Bibliography
Primary sources
- Mehmet Arslan (hzl.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları (Kültür Eserleri Dizisi 576), 2018, p. 146, Gazel 182 (Ü 69a); pp. 150-151, Gazel 191. ekitap.ktb.gov.tr
- Âşık Çelebi, Meşâ‘irü'ş-Şu‘arâ, hzl. Filiz Kılıç, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı e-kitap, p. 357 (entry on Mihrî). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr
Academic studies
- Gülşen Kaya, Mihrî Hâtun Divânı'nın Tahlili, master's thesis, Fırat Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Elazığ 2010, pp. 76, 230, 251, 277, 289. openaccess.firat.edu.tr
Books
- Didem Havlioğlu, "On the Margins and Between the Lines: Ottoman Women Poets from the Fifteenth to the Twentieth Centuries", Turkish Historical Review 1 (2010), pp. 25-27.
Online sources
