Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilün

Dost nâzük yâr imişsin böyle bilmezdüm seni
Dil yaḳıcı nâr imişsin böyle bilmezdüm seni
Cevr ile ‘âşıḳlaruñ od yaḳdurursın başına
Ḫayli ḫoş seḥḥâr imişsin böyle bilmezdüm seni
Gül gibi yüze güler didüklerince dostum
Şimdi bildüm var imişsin böyle bilmezdüm seni
Göñlin aldum âl ile dirdüñ ḫoş inkâr eyledüñ
Hey ne bî-iḳrâr imişsin böyle bilmezdüm seni
Göñli ayruḳlara virmişsin dil ile ḫoş beni
Āh kim aldar imişsin böyle bilmezdüm seni
Cümle ‘âlem ḫalḳını aġyâr idindüm seni yâr
Sen daḫi aġyâr imişsin böyle bilmezdüm seni
Ey ki düşdüñ Mihrî her bir bî-vefânuñ pâyına
Sen daḫi bî-‘âr imişsin böyle bilmezdüm seni

In English

1. Friend, so you are a delicate, touchy beloved; I did not know you to be like this. So you are a fire that burns hearts; I did not know you to be like this. ("Nâzük" means both slender, fine, and sensitive, coquettish.)

2. With your cruelty you have fire lit upon the heads of lovers; so you are a most pleasing sorceress; I did not know you to be like this.

3. My friend, they used to say of you that you "laugh to the face like a rose"; now I understand that you really are so; I did not know you to be like this. ("To laugh to someone's face" means to show a smiling face while deceiving behind the back; the opening of a rose too is called "laughing".)

4. You said, "I won my heart by trickery", and then you denied it prettily; ah, what a one who does not keep her word you are; I did not know you to be like this. (The couplet can be read in two ways: "âl" means both trick and the colour red, so the line can also be understood as "I took your heart with your red cheek".)

5. You have given your heart to strangers, and have kept me occupied with sweet words; ah, so you are a deceiver; I did not know you to be like this.

6. I took all the people of the world for strangers and only you for a friend; so you too are a stranger; I did not know you to be like this.

7. O Mihrî, who have fallen at the feet of every faithless one, so you too are shameless; I did not know you to be like this.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The one hundred and ninety-third ghazal (gazel) has seven couplets (beyit) and is composed in the remel metre with the pattern "Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilün". The redif (refrain word) is a long sentence: "imişsin böyle bilmezdüm seni". The rhyme is built on the sound "-âr": yâr, nâr, seḥḥâr, var, bî-iḳrâr, aldar, aġyâr, bî-‘âr. Long redifs determine the meaning of a ghazal; when every couplet ends with this sentence, the poem becomes a record of a disappointment from beginning to end. In Arslan's edition the ghazal rests on manuscripts F, S and Ü; in the second couplet manuscript F reads "‘âşıḳlaruñ" and manuscript S reads "yaġdurursun". In Havlioğlu's electronic text the ghazal is number 198; there the first line of the fifth couplet reads "Göñli ıraḳlara virmişsin", that is, "you have given your heart to those far away". The tezkires have no record of whom or on what occasion the ghazal was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

Sıtkı Nazik says that the redif "imişsin böyle bilmezdüm seni" shows the encounter with a surprising situation contrary to what was expected, and that the poet often ends her statement with this sentence by stressing the beloved's negative sides. The suffix "-mış" in the redif is the grammatical counterpart of this surprise: the lover has learned something afterwards and realized that it is so. Each couplet of the ghazal reveals another face of the beloved: delicate, burning, a sorceress, two-faced, one who does not keep her word, a deceiver and, at last, a stranger.

In the first couplet there is a similarity of sound between "nâzük yâr" and "nâr"; the beloved's delicacy and her power to burn are placed side by side. Gülşen Kaya cites this couplet among the examples in which the beloved is likened to fire for her burning of hearts. In the second couplet the beloved is a magician who has fire lit upon the heads of lovers; fire and magic complete one another. The third couplet joins the idiom "yüze gülmek" (to laugh to the face) with the opening of the rose. The beloved is said to "laugh to the face like a rose"; the rose is beautiful and smiling, but the idiom also describes duplicity. This double meaning brings the couplet close to a double entendre (tevriye). In the fourth couplet the word "âl" means both trick and the colour red; the beloved's red cheek and her trickery meet in one word.

The sixth couplet is the knot of the ghazal. The lover has counted the whole world as "aġyâr" (stranger, rival) and known only the beloved as "yâr" (friend); now she sees that the beloved too is an aġyâr. The contrast between "yâr" and "aġyâr" carries the couplet. In the final couplet (makta) the direction of the redif changes. The words "I did not know you to be like this", so far said to the beloved, turn this time on the poet herself: Mihrî, who has fallen at the feet of every faithless one, has turned out to be shameless too. This turn, by which the reproach finally accuses its own speaker, gives the ghazal a sincere tone.

Tâcîzâde Cafer Çelebi of Amasya also has a ghazal in the same metre, rhyme and redif. In comparing the two ghazals, Nazik notes that the second line of one of Cafer Çelebi's couplets ("Hey ne nâzük yâr imişsin böyle bilmezdüm seni") almost repeats Mihrî's first line. In his view, Mihrî associates the beloved's cruelty with fire and magic, whereas Cafer Çelebi associates it with thorns and indifference. Nazik adds that these shared features bring a nazire (response poem) to mind, but that neither Mecma‘u'n-Neẓâ’ir nor Pervâne Bey's Mecmua records a nazire between the two poets. Which ghazal was written first is not known.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Mehmet Arslan (ed.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları (Kültür Eserleri Dizisi 576), 2018, pp. 151-152, Ghazal 193 (F 72a, S 73b, Ü 72b). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr

Academic studies

  • Sıtkı Nazik, "Benzer Redifli Şiirleri Bağlamında Mihrî Hatun ve Tâcî-zâde Cafer Çelebi'nin Karşılaştırılması", Uluslararası Amasya Âlimleri Sempozyumu Bildiriler Kitabı II, Amasya 2017, pp. 138, 140, 145, 147.
  • Gülşen Kaya, Mihrî Hâtun Divânı'nın Tahlili, master's thesis, Fırat Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Elazığ 2010, p. 273. 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. 198).

Online sources