Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilün

Gitdi ‘aḳlum bilüm ey şâh-ı cihân sen gideli
Bir nefes tende ḳarâr itmedi cân sen gideli
Çünki sen serv-i revân gitdi hemân oldı revân
‘Aḳabince gözümüñ yaşı revân sen gideli
Mihrüñi ṣaḳlar idüm dilde gözüm yaşı velî
Eyledi sırrumı gün gibi ‘ayân sen gideli
Ẕikr ü tesbîḥi ḳodum şâm u seḥer elümden
Aduñı yâd iderem dilde hemân sen gideli
Yalıñuz şehrî degüldür baña zindân görinen
Mihrî'nüñ gözine ṭar oldı cihân sen gideli

In English

1. O king of the world, since you left my mind and my understanding have gone; since you left, the soul has not rested in the body for a single breath.

2. When you, the cypress who walks with a swaying gait, departed, my soul at once set out after you; since you left, the tears of my eyes flow on behind you. (The word "revân" occurs three times in the couplet, as "walking with a swaying gait", "setting out" and "flowing". In Persian it also means "soul, spirit".)

3. I used to keep my love for you hidden in my heart, but since you left, my tears have laid my secret bare as the day.

4. Since you left I have put down the dhikr and the prayer beads, morning and evening; I do nothing but repeat your name in my heart.

5. It is not only this city that looks like a dungeon to me; since you left, the whole world has grown narrow in Mihrî's eyes.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The 201st ghazal of the divan has five couplets and is written in the remel metre, in the pattern "Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilün". Its redif (refrain word) is "sen gideli" ("since you left"); the rhyme is built on the sound "-ân": cân, revân, ‘ayân, hemân, cihân. The poem is found in the F, S and Ü manuscripts. The F and S manuscripts read "revân oldı revân" in the second couplet instead of "hemân oldı revân", and in the fourth couplet both have "elden uş şâm u seḥer" in place of "şâm u seḥer elümden". It is not known on what occasion of separation, or for whom, the ghazal was written; the address "şâh-ı cihân" (king of the world) in the opening couplet is a common way in divan poetry of presenting the beloved as a sovereign.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

Sıtkı Nazik, in his study of Mihrî's choice of refrains, says that this ghazal with the redif "sen gideli" opens the door to longing and change: a yearning for the time of meeting that comes with separation from the beloved, and a feeling that nothing is as it was, dominate the poem. Each couplet describes one aspect of this change. In the opening couplet mind and soul are gone; in the second the tears have begun to flow after the beloved; in the third the hidden love is exposed; in the fourth worship is abandoned; and in the closing couplet the whole world has become narrow.

The use of the word "revân" in three different senses in the second couplet is the most conspicuous wordplay of the ghazal. "Serv-i revân" means the cypress that walks with a swaying gait and describes the tall beloved; "revân olmak" means to set out; and "yaşı revân" is flowing tears. Repeating the same word with different meanings gives the couplet a harmony close to a pun (cinas). In the third couplet the word "mihr" means both love and sun, and the phrase "gün gibi ‘ayân" (clear as the day) at the end of the line evokes this second meaning too. The link between the poet's pen name (mahlas) "Mihrî" and this word is a play to which the divan often returns.

In the fourth couplet the lover says that she has put aside the dhikr and prayer beads she used to recite morning and evening and mentions only the beloved's name. The beloved's remembrance taking the place of worship rests on the divan-poetry habit of thinking of love as a kind of religious devotion. In the closing couplet a gradation is drawn between the dungeon and the world. Gülşen Kaya points to this couplet in her study of the imagery of the dungeon and captivity in Mihrî's divan: with the beloved gone, it is not only the city but the whole world that appears to the lover as a dungeon.

Historical Context

The redif "sen gideli" was a favourite in fifteenth-century poetry. Gülay Karaman, in a study that surveyed nearly a hundred divans, establishes that Şeyhî was the first to use this redif in Turkish literature. According to Karaman, the phrase "Beyrek gideli" and "sen gideli", with the same feeling of longing, also occurs in the Bamsı Beyrek chapter of the Book of Dede Korkut. After Şeyhî, in the same century, Ahmed Paşa, Karamanlı Aynî, Karamanlı Nizâmî and Mihrî Hatun wrote ghazals with this redif. Karaman states that the ghazals of Aynî, Nizâmî and Mihrî were written as nazires (response poems) not to Şeyhî but to Ahmed Paşa's ghazal with the redif "sen gideli", and she regards these nazires as an indicator of how greatly Ahmed Paşa's ghazal was admired in its day.

When the two texts are set side by side, the nazire relationship is clear. Ahmed Paşa's ghazal is also written in the same pattern of the remel metre and built on the rhyme "-ân"; its opening couplet begins with the line "Kârbân-ı dil ü cân oldu revân sen gideli". Mihrî's second couplet likewise carries the word "revân" into the rhyme and repeats the image of the soul setting out after the beloved. Ahmed Paşa's line "Karanudur gözüme iki cihân sen gideli" and Mihrî's closing line "Mihrî'nüñ gözine ṭar oldı cihân sen gideli" also meet on the same rhyme word and around the same image: in one the world looks dark to the eye, in the other narrow. In the nazire tradition a poet is expected to keep to the metre, rhyme and redif of the model poem while putting forward his or her own voice; within these limits Mihrî rebuilds Ahmed Paşa's imagery in her own language.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Mehmet Arslan (ed.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları (Kültür Eserleri Dizisi 576), 2018, p. 156, Ghazal 201 (F 72a, S 74a, Ü 74a). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr

Academic studies

  • Gülay Karaman, "Gidenlerin Ardından: Şeyhî ve Ahmet Paşa'nın 'Sen Gideli' Redifli Gazelleri Üzerine Bir Karşılaştırma", Turkish Studies 8/13 (Autumn 2013), pp. 1123-1143 (Mihrî's nazires p. 1127; Ahmed Paşa's ghazal pp. 1132-1133).
  • 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. 137-138.
  • Gülşen Kaya, Mihrî Hâtun Divânı'nın Tahlili, master's thesis, Fırat University Institute of Social Sciences, Elazığ 2010, p. 119. openaccess.firat.edu.tr

Online sources