Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Ḫoş rûḥa ġıdâ idi ṣanem ḥüsni nevâsı
İllâ nidelüm vardur anuñ daḫi fenâsı
Bir ġonca-i ter ṣaḥn-ı çemende açılınca
Anuñla bile bitmese biñ ḫâr-ı cefâsı
Bülbül nice feryâd u fiġân eylemesün kim
Bir heftelige hem-demidür ġonca ṣafâsı
Ġırr'olmañ iñen ḥüsnüñüz'ey ḫûb ṣanemler
Gül ‘ömri gibi tîz geçer ḥüsn beḳâsı
Bu güni bahâr ise vü yarını ḫazândur
Kendüye ḳalur her kişinüñ yüzi ḳarası
Bir devr idi ser-defter-i ḫûbân idi Mihrî
Şimdi görüñ uş her güzelüñ oldı gedâsı

In English

1. The melody of the beloved's beauty (the idol-like beloved, sanem) was fine nourishment for the soul; but what can we do, it too has an end, an annihilation. ("Nevâ" means both melody, sound, and provision, portion; the word "ġıdâ" (food) also brings out this second sense.)

2. When a fresh bud opens in the middle of the garden, if only a thousand thorns of cruelty did not grow up with it. (The couplet can be read in two ways: as a wish, "if only the thorns did not come up as well", or as a lament, "when the bud opens, a thousand thorns of cruelty grow along with it".)

3. How should the nightingale not cry out and lament; the delight the bud offers is a companion to it for only a week. (The rose season is short; the nightingale's joy lasts no longer.)

4. O fair beloveds, do not be deceived by relying too much on your beauty; the lasting of beauty passes as quickly as the life of a rose.

5. If today is spring, tomorrow is autumn; everyone's black face (disgrace) stays with himself. (Beauty goes, but the disgrace of the cruelty the beauty has shown remains with the beauty.)

6. Once Mihrî was written at the head of the register of beauties, that is, she was foremost among the fair; now look, she has become a beggar at the door of every beauty.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The one hundred and ninetieth ghazal (gazel) of the divan has six couplets (beyit) and is composed in the hezec metre with the pattern "Mef‘ûlü Mefâ‘îlü Mefâ‘îlü Fa‘ûlün". The ghazal can be counted as having no redif (refrain word); the "-sı" repeated at the ends of the lines is a possessive suffix, and the real rhyme is built on the sound "-â": nevâsı, fenâsı, cefâsı, ṣafâsı, beḳâsı, gedâsı. The word "ḳarası" in the fifth couplet stands loosely within this series as far as sound is concerned; the short "a" is lengthened in reading, as the metre requires, and made to fit the rhyme. In Arslan's edition the ghazal rests on manuscripts F, S and Ü, and the differences between them are minor spelling variants. The most notable is that the reading "iñen ḥüsnüñüz'ey" in the fourth couplet appears in manuscript F as "ḥüsnüñüze". In Didem Havlioğlu's electronic text the ghazal is number 195 and the same place reads "igen ḥüsnüñüze ey"; in both readings the sense is "do not rely too much on your beauty". 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 the transience of beauty, and this idea is worked out from start to finish through images of the rose garden. The first couplet compares beauty to a melody that nourishes the soul, and in its second line at once recalls that this melody too has its "fenâ", its end. Thus pleasure and nonexistence are set side by side in the very first couplet. In the second couplet the bud and the thorn appear as the well-known pair of divan poetry: beauty opens, but thorns of cruelty grow beside it. The third couplet moves to the motif of the rose and the nightingale. The nightingale's lament here does not come only from the pain of love; the delight of the bud keeps it company for only a week, and the nightingale mourns this short life. The words "bülbül", "feryâd", "fiġân", "ġonca" and "ṣafâ" in the couplet are parts of the same picture and form a congruence of images (tenasüp).

The fourth couplet turns what was said indirectly in the previous three into direct advice and addresses the beauties: do not be deceived by your beauty, its life is as long as the life of a rose. Gülşen Kaya notes that the rose is in divan poetry a symbol of youth, freshness and beauty, but that because it scatters so quickly it also expresses the transience of beauty, and she gives this couplet as an example. In the fifth couplet an antithesis is set up between spring and autumn: what is spring today is autumn tomorrow. Kaya cites this couplet among the examples in which autumn is used in the divan for the end of beauty, the exhaustion of life and old age. The second line of the couplet adds a moral judgement with the idiom "yüz karası" (a black face, disgrace): beauty passes and goes, but the shame of the cruelty the beauty has shown the lover stays with her. The presence of the word "ḳara" (black) between the colours of spring and autumn also adds a harmony of colour to the couplet.

The final couplet (makta) turns the whole idea of the ghazal back upon the poet herself. Mihrî says that she was once "ser-defter-i ḫûbân", that is, the one written at the head of the register of beauties, and that now she is a beggar at the door of every beauty. The contrast between the head of the register and beggary makes up the real force of the couplet. A similar thought occurs in the final couplet of the divan's 184th ghazal: "Dime bugün ki hüsn ilinüñ pâdişâhıyam / Mihrî gibi felek ider irte gedâ seni" (Do not say today that I am the sultan of the land of beauty; fate will make a beggar of you soon, as it did of Mihrî). In interpreting that couplet Kaya says that beauty is transient and that fate can turn the sultan of the land of beauty into a beggar in an instant, just as it did to Mihrî. In the ghazals of male poets it is always the beloved who is beautiful; here the voice of a woman poet recalling her own past beauty is heard. Mehmet Arslan too, relying on the tezkires, records that in her youth Mihrî was remembered as a very beautiful woman and a pleasant companion. That the couplet agrees with this information is noteworthy; but there is no record showing at what age the ghazal was written, and speaking of oneself in this way in the final couplet is one of the customary turns of divan poetry.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Mehmet Arslan (ed.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları (Kültür Eserleri Dizisi 576), 2018, p. 150, Ghazal 190 (F 73a, S 75a, Ü 71b); introduction p. 6. ekitap.ktb.gov.tr

Academic studies

  • Gülşen Kaya, Mihrî Hâtun Divânı'nın Tahlili, master's thesis, Fırat Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Elazığ 2010, pp. 198, 266, 284. openaccess.firat.edu.tr

Other sources

  • Didem Havlioğlu (ed.), "Ğazeliyyāt-ı Mihri-i Hāqīre", türkoloji-iran, 2007 (a different transliteration of the ghazal, ghazal no. 195).

Online sources