Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Ey dil bahâr faṣlı vü çün devr-i lâledür
Lâ dimezüz ki ‘âşıḳa sevdâ ḥavâledür
Bezm-i çemende ṣaḥn-ı gülistânda devr iden
Sâḳî elinde sâġar-ı ṣâfî piyâledür
Dilber cemâli üzre ‘araḳlar ki dizlüdür
Gül yapraġında ṣanasın anı ki jâledür
Ma‘şûḳ elinde cevr ü cefâ vü ‘itâb u nâz
‘Āşıḳ dilinde şâm u seḥer âh u nâledür
Bu devr içinde gûşe-i gülşende Mihriyâ
Devlet anuñ ki hem-demi bir çeşmi aladur

In English

1. O heart, it is the season of spring and the time of the tulip; we cannot say "no" when love's passion is laid upon the lover. ("Lâ" means "no" in Arabic and plays on the first syllable of "lâle", tulip. "Sevdâ" means both the passion of love and, in old medicine, the black bile believed to cause madness. Manuscript F reads "çü hem" in place of "vü çün".)

2. What goes from hand to hand in the gathering on the meadow, in the middle of the rose garden, is the cup filled with pure wine in the cupbearer's hand.

3. The beads of sweat strung across the beloved's face look like dewdrops on a rose petal.

4. In the beloved's hand are torment, cruelty, reproach and coquetry; in the lover's mouth, evening and morning, are sighs and lament.

5. O Mihrî, in this season, blessed is the one who sits alone in a corner of the rose garden with a hazel-eyed companion. ("Devlet" here means fortune, happiness. Manuscript Ü reads "rûz", day, in place of "devr": on this day.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The twentieth ghazal (gazel) has five couplets (beyit) and is written in the muzâri meter of the aruz (quantitative metre), in the pattern "Mef‘ûlü Fâ‘ilâtü Mefâ‘îlü Fâ‘ilün". The rhyme rests on the sounds "-âle/-ale" (lâle, ḥavâle, piyâle, jâle, nâle, ala), and the redif (refrain word) is the suffix "-dur/-dür". Because the last letter of the redif is rā, the poem appears in the edition under the section "Ḥarfü'r-Râ". It is found in all four manuscripts, but its position differs notably. In manuscript Ü it is at folio 31b, together with the other "Râ" ghazals; in F it is at 74a and in S at 76b, much further back, and in M at 62b. The variants are the readings "faṣlı vü / faṣlı" and "vü çün / çü hem" in the first couplet, "cemâli / cemâl" in the third, "cevr ü / cevr" in the fourth, and "devr / rûz" in the last. It is not known for whom the poem was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal carries the mood of divan poems about the spring season and spring entertainments. The words spring, tulip, meadow, rose garden, cupbearer, cup, rose petal and dew build a picture of a spring gathering; the poet places in it the beloved's cruelty and the lover's lament, and in the last couplet says that the real happiness of the season is to be alone with the beloved in a corner.

In the opening couplet (matla), "devr-i lâle" means the tulip season, the spring days adorned with tulips. Gülşen Kaya cites this couplet among conceptions of love: love flares up in the spring months like madness, and in this respect is called "sevdâ"; sevdâ describes a state of love close to madness, and the sense of "black" in the word strengthens this. The idea that spring stirs up passion joins with the phrase "Lâ dimezüz", "we cannot say no". The sound similarity between "lâ" and "lâle" adds wordplay to the couplet: when the tulip season has come, one cannot say "lâ" (no). The word "ḥavâle" conveys that passion is assigned to the lover like a duty or burden.

In the second couplet the words "bezm", "devr", "sâḳî", "sâġar" and "piyâle" form a congruence of images (tenasüp) of a wine gathering. The phrase "devr iden" describes the cup passing from hand to hand and is linked in sound and sense to "devr-i lâle" in the first couplet: the turn of the tulip season and the turn of the cup are said with the same word. The third couplet is an open simile (teşbih). The beads of sweat on the beloved's face are likened to dewdrops on a rose petal; the face corresponds to the rose, the sweat to the dew. The verb "dizlüdür" (is strung) shows the drops in rows like pearls on a necklace.

The fourth couplet is the most carefully constructed of the ghazal. The two lines are exact counterparts: "Ma‘şûḳ elinde" ("in the beloved's hand") faces "‘Āşıḳ dilinde" ("in the lover's mouth"), and "cevr ü cefâ vü ‘itâb u nâz" faces "şâm u seḥer âh u nâle". What is in the beloved's hand and what is in the lover's mouth stand in contrast; this is a clear example of the art of mukabele (balanced correspondence). The four things in the beloved's "hand" are kinds of torment, while what is in the lover's "mouth" is sighs and lament, morning and evening.

In the closing couplet the word "devlet" is used in the sense of fortune and happiness. Kaya cites this couplet, noting that in the divan devlet is used for fortune, wealth and felicity, and that in spring union with the beloved is expressed as the lover's greatest devlet. "Gûşe-i gülşen" (the corner of the rose garden) and "hem-dem" (intimate companion) together draw a picture of a happiness for two, apart from the crowded gathering. The rhyme word "ala" is a Turkish word meaning hazel-eyed and enters the same rhyme as the Arabic- and Persian-derived words "lâle", "piyâle" and "jâle".

Bibliography

  • Mehmet Arslan (ed.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları (Kültür Eserleri Dizisi 576), 2018, p. 61, Gazel 20 (F 74a, M 62b, S 76b, Ü 31b) and footnotes on manuscript variants. ekitap.ktb.gov.tr
  • Gülşen Kaya, Mihrî Hâtun Divânı'nın Tahlili, master's thesis, Fırat Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Elazığ 2010 (entries on love and sevdâ, devlet). openaccess.firat.edu.tr