Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Gel ki senden budur ey dost bu cânuñ dilegi
Yar neler vardur içinde gör e derdlü yüregi
Ḥamdü-lillah ki müjeñ tîri cigerden geçicek
Hele peykânları ḳaldı dile yeter belegi
Râygân virseler almam bu cihân ḫûblarını
Saña cân virüp aluram baña sensin geregi
Yâr ile ḫoş-dem idük irdi bize bed-naẓaruñ
Çatlaya şallah raḳîbâ iki gözüñ bebegi
Her ki yârümden ayırur beni yâ Rab dilerem
‘Ömri az olsun u dünyâda dükensün kepegi
Baş ḳoşup zülfüñe Mihrî ḳurı sevdâlarla
Yel gibi yeldi yoluñda yele virdi emegi

In English

1. Come, my friend; this is what my soul asks of you: come and see what lies inside this grieving heart.

2. Thank God that when the arrow of your eyelash passed through my liver, at least its arrowheads stayed in my heart; as a gift, that is enough. ("Belek" means a gift in Old Turkish. With the reading "yelegi" in the F manuscript, the line means "the feather of the arrow is enough for the heart"; the yelek is the feather at the rear end of an arrow.)

3. Even if they gave me all the beauties of this world for nothing, I would not take them; I would give my life to you and take you, for it is you that I need.

4. My beloved and I were enjoying ourselves, and your evil eye struck us; O rival, God willing, may the pupils of your two eyes burst.

5. O Lord, whoever separates me from my beloved, I pray that his life be short and that his bran run out in this world (his bread, his livelihood).

6. Mihrî tied her head to your tresses with empty longings and ran like the wind on your path, but gave all her toil to the wind (her toil was wasted).

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The 202nd ghazal of the divan has six couplets and is written in the remel metre, in the pattern "Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilün". The ghazal has no redif (refrain word); the rhyme is built on the sounds "-egi": dilegi, yüregi, belegi, bebegi, kepegi, emegi. Almost all the rhyme words are of Turkic origin, which gives the poem a voice close to everyday speech. The poem is found in the F, S and Ü manuscripts. The most meaningful of the variants is in the second couplet: the F manuscript reads "yelegi" in place of "belegi", turning the image to the feather of the arrow. In the fourth couplet the S manuscript has the full form "inşallah" in place of "şallah". Nothing is known of whom the ghazal was written for or on what occasion.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal opens with the lover asking the beloved to open her breast and see inside her heart. The grieving heart is like a closed box; only when it is split open will the beloved see what it holds. This opening already signals the harsh and concrete idiom of the ghazal as a whole. In the second couplet the eyelash is compared to an arrow. In divan poetry the beloved's eyelashes are arrows and her eyebrows a bow; the arrow has passed through the lover's liver, but its temrens, the pointed iron tips of the arrow, have stayed in the heart. The lover gives thanks for it, because even this wound left by the beloved is a gift to her. Gülşen Kaya, in her section on eyelash imagery in Mihrî's divan, includes this couplet among the examples in which the eyelash is compared to an arrow and the pleasure of being shot in the heart is described. There is congruence of images (tenasüp) among the words tîr, peykân, ciger and dil.

The third couplet is built in the language of trade. If all the beauties of the world were handed over "râygân", that is, free, the lover would not take them; she is ready to buy the beloved at the price of her own life. The reciprocal use of the verbs "virmek" (to give) and "almak" (to take) lends the couplet vitality through antithesis (tezat).

The fourth and fifth couplets are among Mihrî's harshest toward the rival. In the fourth, the happy time of lover and beloved is spoiled by the rival's evil eye, and the poet wishes that the pupils of the rival's two eyes burst. Kaya, in her discussion of the belief in the evil eye in the divan, cites this couplet as an example of lover and beloved being parted because of a rival's "bed-naẓar" (evil gaze). Being struck by the evil eye and the bursting of the eye's pupil are beliefs and curses that survive among the people today. In the fifth couplet, the person who separates the lover from the beloved is wished a short life and that his "kepek" (bran) should run out. Bran is the husk of wheat and bran bread is the food of the poor; for even the bran to run out means that livelihood has been cut off entirely. These curses, taken from the speech of the people, pull the language of the ghazal away from the ornate idiom of divan poetry toward everyday talk.

In the closing couplet Mihrî says that her toil was wasted. In the line "Yel gibi yeldi yoluñda yele virdi emegi" the word "yel" occurs in three forms: "yel" in the sense of wind, the verb "yelmek" (to run), and the idiom "yele vermek" (to give to the wind, to waste). Using words of the same root or the same sound together rests on the arts of derivation (iştikak) and pun (cinas). "Ḳurı sevdâ" is likewise an idiom meaning fruitless, empty longing. The ghazal opens with a wish addressed to the beloved and closes with a confession that the labour has gone to the wind; between these two ends the lover has openly voiced her anger at those who keep her from the beloved.

Bibliography

  • Mehmet Arslan (ed.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları (Kültür Eserleri Dizisi 576), 2018, pp. 156-157, Ghazal 202 (F 71a, S 73a, Ü 74b). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr
  • Gülşen Kaya, Mihrî Hâtun Divânı'nın Tahlili, master's thesis, Fırat University Institute of Social Sciences, Elazığ 2010, pp. 118, 164. openaccess.firat.edu.tr