Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Kim ḳocar mûy-miyânuñı kemerden ġayri
Kim öper leblerüñi sâġar-ı zerden ġayri
Cânı yoḳ deprede biñ yıl ki hevâsında yele
Zülfüñüñ bir ḳılını bâd-ı seḥerden ġayri
Yalıñuz ben mi ḫarîdâruñam ey Zühre-cebîn
Gün daḫi müşteridür saña ḳamerden ġayri
Mihrüñi cân ḳafesinde virürem rûḥa ġıdâ
Ṭûṭiye var mı ġıdâ daḫi şekerden ġayri
Câm-ı la‘lüñ meyin içürdi raḳîbe nidelüm
Bize ṣunmadı felek ḫûn-ı cigerden ġayri
Leb-i cânânı görüp diş biledüm geldi didi
Nesne yoḳ Mihrî aña umma ḥacerden ġayri

In English

1. Who but the belt embraces your waist, fine as a hair? Who but the golden goblet kisses your lips?

2. Even if it ran for a thousand years, longing for you, no one but the morning breeze has the strength to stir a single hair of your tresses.

3. O you whose brow is bright as Venus, am I the only one who seeks you? The sun too is a suitor for you, besides the moon. ("Müşterî" means both "buyer" and the old name of the planet Jupiter.)

4. I feed the soul, in the cage of my life, on love (mihr) for you; does a parrot have any food other than sugar? (The soul is likened to a parrot in a cage, and love to the sugar on which it feeds.)

5. Fate let the rival drink the wine from the cup of your ruby lips, what can we do; it served us nothing but the blood of the liver.

6. Seeing the beloved's lips, I whetted my teeth; the beloved came and said: "Mihrî, expect nothing from them, they are nothing but stone." (The lip is compared to the la‘l, a red precious stone, and "whetting the teeth" suggests both greed and sharpening teeth on a stone.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The 203rd 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". Its redif (refrain word) is "ġayri", that is, "other than"; together with the ablative suffix the redif binds the lines in the form "-den ġayri". The rhyme is built on the sound "-er": kemer, zer, seḥer, ḳamer, şeker, ciger, ḥacer. The poem is found in the F, S and Ü manuscripts; in the fourth couplet the F manuscript reads "cân nefesinde" instead of "cân ḳafesinde". Nothing is known of whom the ghazal was written for or on what occasion.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

All the couplets of the ghazal rest on the same idea: only certain things can come near the beloved, and everyone else, the lover included, is left without. In the opening couplet only the belt embraces the beloved's waist, fine as a hair, and only the golden goblet kisses her lips. There is congruence of images (tenasüp) between the slender waist ("mûy-miyân") and the belt, and between the lips and the goblet; the lover is jealous of these objects that can touch the beloved. In the second couplet the same privilege is given to the morning breeze. Even if one strove for a thousand years, no one can stir a single strand of the beloved's tresses; only the dawn wind can do this. In divan poetry the dawn wind is the messenger that plays with the beloved's hair and carries its fragrance to the lover.

The third couplet is built on heavenly bodies. The beloved is "Zühre-cebîn", that is, brow bright as Zühre (Venus); the lover is not the only suitor, for the sun and the moon are also her "müşteri". The word "müşterî" means both buyer and the old name of the planet Jupiter; this double meaning makes a double entendre (tevriye). Gülşen Kaya, in her section on notions of trade in Mihrî's divan, cites this couplet among the examples in which the word "müşterî" is used with a tevriye. There is also congruence of images among Zühre, gün, kamer and müşteri.

In the fourth couplet the soul is compared to a parrot in a cage. In divan poetry the parrot (ṭûṭî) is fed on sugar, and sugar is a conventional image (mazmun) frequently used for sweet words and sweet lips. Mihrî presents her "mihr", her love for the beloved, as the sugar of the soul. The meaning of "mihr" as sun, and its shared sound with the poet's pen name, set up an indirect play in this couplet as well.

The fifth couplet is a complaint against fate. Fate has let the rival drink wine from the cup of the beloved's ruby lips and has offered the lover nothing but the blood of her liver. The meeting of wine and blood in the same red deepens the bitter antithesis in the couplet. The ghazal ends in the closing couplet with a witty exchange. The lover "whets her teeth" for the beloved's lips, that is, grows eager to win them; the beloved tells Mihrî that there is nothing in them but stone. Because in divan poetry the lip is likened to the red precious stone called "la‘l", the word "ḥacer" (stone) recalls this comparison. The whetting of a tooth on stone also forms a link between the idiom "diş bilemek" and stone. The beloved's answer voices both her hardness and the impossibility of union within this wordplay.

Historical Context

The redif "ġayri" became famous through the ghazal of Mihrî's contemporary Necâtî that begins "Dime kim yârda yok cevr ü cefâdan gayrı". According to Pervana Bayram, more than thirty poets, beginning with Mesîhî, Zâtî and Fuzûlî and continuing up to the nineteenth century, wrote nazires (response poems) to this ghazal. Necâtî's ghazal is, like Mihrî's, written in the remel pattern "Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilün", but its rhyme rests on the sound "-â" (cefâ, vefâ, ṣabâ, belâ). Because Mihrî's ghazal is built on the rhyme "-er", it does not belong among the nazires written to that poem, and Mihrî's name does not appear in the list of nazire writers given by Bayram. What the two poems share is therefore limited to metre and redif.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Mehmet Arslan (ed.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları (Kültür Eserleri Dizisi 576), 2018, p. 157, Ghazal 203 (F 73a, S 74b, Ü 74b). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr

Academic studies

  • Gülşen Kaya, Mihrî Hâtun Divânı'nın Tahlili, master's thesis, Fırat University Institute of Social Sciences, Elazığ 2010, pp. 92, 178, 256. openaccess.firat.edu.tr
  • Pervana Bayram, "Necâtî Beğ'in 'Gayrı' Redifli Gazeline XVI. Asırda Fuzûlî'nin ve XIX. Asırda Seyyid Nigârî'nin Nazireleri", Çukurova Üniversitesi Türkoloji Araştırmaları Merkezi online publication.

Online sources