Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Gözüm çü gördi sen yüzi gül boyı ‘ar‘arı
Virdi yoluña biñ dil ile ‘ömri serserî
Ten yandı dil göyündi yürek deldi fürḳatüñ
Ġamzeñ ḫadengi ḫışm ile çün çekdi ḫançeri
Çeşmüñ mi ḳıldı ġamzeñe ta‘lîm dostum
Bir tîr ile ḫoş ṭaġıdur yüz biñ ‘askeri
Nergis ṣarardı gördi vü ġonca ḳızardı hem
Ṣaḥn-ı çemende sen yüzi gül ‘ayn-ı ‘abheri
Heybetde dir gören ‘Alî ḳuvvetde Ḥamza'dur
Rezmine düşmenüñ yüriyüp sürse ‘aşḳarı
Ṭoḳsan bir ile yüzi ‘adedde laḳab çıḳar
‘Aḳluñ yeterse kim idügin bil bu serveri
Medḥüñde çoḳ ġazel diyici ḫûb u bî-nâẓîr
Ma‘ẕûr ṭut ‘ayıblama bu Mihrî kemteri

In English

1. When my eye saw you, the rose-cheeked one, tall as a juniper, it gave its life to your path with a thousand hearts, as a wandering vagabond.

2. When the arrow of your glance drew its dagger in anger, my body burned and my heart was scorched; the separation from you has pierced my heart as well.

3. My friend, did your eye teach your glance to scatter a hundred thousand soldiers with a single arrow?

4. Seeing your rose face and your narcissus eye in the middle of the meadow, the narcissus turned yellow (with envy) and the rosebud turned red (with shame). ("‘Abher" is a name of the narcissus; "‘ayn-ı ‘abher" means narcissus eye.)

5. If he marches toward the enemy's battle and spurs his horse, those who see him say: "In majesty he is Ali, in strength he is Hamza." ("‘Aşḳar" means a bay horse of reddish colour.)

6. Ninety-one and a hundred, by their numerical value, give a title; if your mind is able, know who this leader is. (By abjad reckoning, 191, the sum of 91 and 100, gives the name "Süleymân".)

7. Excuse this worthless Mihrî, who has uttered many beautiful and matchless ghazals in your praise, and do not blame her.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The 205th ghazal of the divan has seven couplets and is written in the muzâri metre, in the pattern "Mef‘ûlü Fâ‘ilâtü Mefâ‘îlü Fâ‘ilün". The ghazal has no redif (refrain word); the rhyme is built on the sounds "-eri": ‘ar‘arı, serserî, ḫançeri, ‘askeri, ‘abheri, ‘aşḳarı, serveri, kemteri. The poem is found only in the Ü manuscript and in the edition bears the heading "Īn ġazelest ki Elif Ne-dâred"; this Persian heading means "This is a ghazal that has no elif." The ghazal stands near the end of the divan, in the section "Ḥarfü'l-Yâ".

Mehmet Arslan, the editor of the edition, in his paper on Mihrî's artful poems, counts this ghazal, together with the elifnâme, the muvaşşah, the dotless ghazal and the ghazal with puns, among the poems in which the poet shows her artistic power. According to Arslan, the ghazal was written with words in which the first letter of the Arabic alphabet, elif, is never used. Arslan notes that few poets tried this form in divan poetry and says that, as an example, he has seen such a poem by Feyzî, who died in 1771.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal carries all the features of a praise poem. In the opening couplet the beloved is rose-cheeked and "‘ar‘ar", that is, as tall as a juniper tree. In divan poetry a tall, straight figure is usually likened to a cypress; the juniper is another form of this comparison. As soon as the lover's eye sees the beloved, it gives its life to the beloved's path. The second and third couplets are built in the language of war. The glance is an arrow and anger is a drawn dagger; a single arrow scatters a hundred thousand soldiers. In divan poetry a relation of teacher and pupil is imagined between the eye and the glance, and Mihrî asks whether it was the eye that taught the glance this mastery. There is congruence of images (tenasüp) among the words tîr, ḫadeng, ḫançer and ‘asker.

In the fourth couplet the figure of fantastic aetiology (hüsn-i ta‘lîl) is used. That the narcissus is yellow and the rosebud red is a natural property of each flower; the poet attributes these to the beauty of the beloved. The narcissus has turned yellow with envy on seeing the beloved's eye, and the rosebud has turned red with shame on seeing her rose face. Because "‘abher" in the phrase "‘ayn-ı ‘abher" means narcissus, the word "narcissus" occurs twice in the couplet, once under its common Turkish name and once under its Arabic name; the yellow narcissus is thus defeated by the narcissus-eyed beloved.

The fifth couplet shows the person praised as a warrior. As he spurs his horse toward the enemy, those who see him liken him to Hz. Ali in majesty and to Hz. Hamza in strength. Gülşen Kaya observes that of the four caliphs it is Hz. Ali who is mentioned most often in Mihrî's divan, in connection with his awe-inspiring presence, and that by naming him in the same couplet with Hz. Hamza, the uncle of the Prophet, the grandeur of the person praised is meant to be stressed; she cites this couplet as an example. This allusion to two heroes also shows that the person praised is thought of not as an ordinary beloved but as a lord or prince going to war.

In the closing couplet the poet calls herself "kemter", that is, worthless and lowly, and asks the person praised to excuse her for composing so many ghazals in praise of him. This modesty is a common attitude at the close of poems presented to a patron. The phrase "Medḥüñde çoḳ ġazel" suggests that the poet had written praise poems for the same person before.

Historical Context

The riddle in the sixth couplet reveals for whom the ghazal was written. According to Arslan, Mihrî in this couplet hints "as though writing a riddle" at the person to whom she presents the poem: ninety-one plus one hundred, which is 191, gives the name "Süleymân" by abjad reckoning. The calculation is as follows: sin 60, lam 30, ye 10, mim 40, elif 1, nun 50; total 191. Gülşen Kaya also explains why the name is given by number rather than written out: since the letter elif is not used in the ghazal, the word "Süleymân", which contains an elif, was given in the form of a riddle. The two devices of the ghazal are thus tied together; the ban on elif made it necessary to hide the name of the patron, and the poet turned this necessity into a puzzle.

Arslan's paper makes no statement about who this Süleyman was. Kaya, relying on the study section of Arslan's 2007 edition, says that in her last years Mihrî attended the gatherings of Şehzade Süleyman, the son of Şehzade Ahmed, that she presented three kasides to him, and that there are three ghazals in the divan in the name of this prince; one of them is the muvaşşah ghazal that gives the name "Süleymân" in its initial letters, and another is the ghazal describing a musical gathering at the pavilion in Eğribük. Kaya also refers to this ghazal as "another ghazal written in the name of Şehzade Süleyman". Because the ghazal is found only in the Ü manuscript and bears no date, the year of its composition cannot be established; if it is accepted as written for Şehzade Süleyman, it must belong to the last period of Mihrî's life.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Mehmet Arslan (ed.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları (Kültür Eserleri Dizisi 576), 2018, p. 158, Ghazal 205 (Ü 75b). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr

Academic studies

  • Mehmet Arslan, "Mihrî Hâtun Divanı'nda Sanatlı Manzumeler", Uluslararası Amasya Âlimleri Sempozyumu Bildiriler Kitabı II, Amasya 2017, pp. 36-37.
  • Gülşen Kaya, Mihrî Hâtun Divânı'nın Tahlili, master's thesis, Fırat University Institute of Social Sciences, Elazığ 2010, pp. 26-27, 61-62. openaccess.firat.edu.tr

Online sources