Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Bîmâr-ı ‘aşḳa düşenüñ olur mı ṭâḳati
Ey dil hemîşe böyledür ‘aşḳuñ ‘alâmeti
Ḳanġı derûnı ney gibi nâlân itmedi
Ḳanġı demâġı yaḳmadı ‘aşḳuñ ḥarâreti
Bu meclis içre sînesi kimüñ def olmadı
Çeng gibi kimüñ olmadı ḫam serv-ḳâmeti
Bir gün ola iñen daḫi ġam çekme ḫaste dil
Dilber müyesser ola bulasın selâmeti
Her cevr ü her cefâyı saña ṭâli‘uñ ider
İtme iñende Mihrî felekden şikâyeti
Ṭabluñ âvâzı sem‘a ıraḳdan ḳaba gelür
İtseñ yeg idi sen bu hevâdan ferâġati

In English

1. Can one who has fallen sick with love have any strength left? O heart, such is always the sign of love.

2. Whose inner being has the heat of love not made to lament like a reed flute (ney), whose brain has it not burned?

3. In this assembly, whose breast has not become a frame drum (def), that is, been beaten? Whose cypress-like stature has not been bent double like a harp (çeng)? (The def is an instrument played by striking it with the hand; the çeng is a stringed instrument with a curved body.)

4. O sick heart, do not suffer so much grief any more; one day it will come about that the beloved is granted to you and you will find deliverance.

5. O Mihrî, it is your fortune that does every injustice and every cruelty to you; do not complain so much of fate.

6. The sound of the drum comes to the ear coarse from afar; it would have been better if you had given up this fancy. ("Hevâ" means both fancy, desire, and air, melody. The couplet can be read in two ways: like the din of a drum, love too is coarse and wearying, so give it up; or give up this musical air, that is, the entertainment of the gathering. This couplet is absent from the F and S manuscripts.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The one hundred and eighty-fifth ghazal (gazel) of the Divan has six 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 ghazal has no redif (refrain word); the rhyme (kafiye) is built on words of Arabic origin ending in the sounds "-âti" and "-eti": ṭâḳati, ‘alâmeti, ḥarâreti, ḳâmeti, selâmeti, şikâyeti, ferâġati. The ghazal is found in the F, S and Ü manuscripts. The pen name (mahlas) Mihrî occurs in the fifth couplet; the sixth couplet is found only in the Ü manuscript, and in the other two manuscripts the ghazal ends with the couplet containing the pen name. This couplet, coming after the pen-name couplet, falls outside the usual order of the form. There is no record of whom the ghazal was written for or on what occasion.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The subject of the ghazal is love itself. The poet describes less a particular beloved than the marks love leaves on a person: lack of strength, lamenting, burning, beating of the breast, bending of the stature. Gülşen Kaya says that in the Divan love is treated as a sickness that turns the lover's face pale and bends her waist, an "illet-i sevdâ" (malady of passion), and she gives the first couplet, which says that the lover sick with love has no strength left and that this is the sign of love, as her example. The relation between "bîmâr" (sick) and "ṭâḳat" (strength) turns the couplet into an explanatory judgment.

The ghazal's most prominent figure is a congruence of images (tenasüp) built from terms of music. The ney appears in the second couplet, the def and çeng in the third, and the "ṭabl" (drum) in the sixth. Kaya notes that the heat of love makes the lover lament like a ney and makes her breast a def and her stature a çeng. The ney is a hollow reed; its use together with the word "derûn" (inside) suggests that the lamenting heart, like the inside of the ney, has been emptied and burned. The def is played by striking, and a breast becoming a def describes beating the breast. The curved body of the çeng is likened to a stature straight as a cypress bent double by grief. This contrast between cypress and çeng is an antithesis of straight and crooked. The phrase "Bu meclis içre" (in this assembly) stages a gathering of conversation at which these instruments are played: the instruments lament in the assembly, and the lovers' hearts lament with them.

In the fourth and fifth couplets the poet consoles, first addressing her heart and then herself. One day the heart will reach the beloved and find deliverance. In the fifth couplet the direction of complaint changes. Kaya says that against the reproaches directed at fate in the Divan, the poet stresses that what should really be complained of is not fate but fortune (talih), and she gives this couplet as an example. Fate (felek) and fortune are often named together in Divan poetry; here a distinction is made between them, and the source of cruelty is shown to be a person's own star, her own fortune.

The sixth couplet has the air of a proverb. The saying known today as "the sound of the drum is pleasant from afar" comes to mind; but the text in the edition reads "ḳaba" (coarse), and the sense is reversed: the sound of the drum seems coarse to the ear even from afar. That the word "hevâ" means both fancy and musical air ties the couplet to the earlier images of music and forms a double entendre (tevriye). Because this couplet is found in only one manuscript and comes after the pen-name couplet, it is also possible that the real ending of the ghazal was the fifth couplet.

Bibliography

  • Mehmet Arslan (hzl.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları (Kültür Eserleri Dizisi 576), 2018, pp. 147-148, Gazel 185 (F 68b, S 70b, Ü 69b). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr
  • Gülşen Kaya, Mihrî Hâtun Divânı'nın Tahlili, master's thesis, Fırat Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Elazığ 2010, pp. 238, 243, 251. openaccess.firat.edu.tr