Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilün

Ol mübârek ẕâtuña her demde ṣıḥḥat yaraşur
Ol muṭahhar cismüñe her anda râḥat yaraşur
Dâr-ı rif‘atde ṣafâ vü ẕevḳ ile leyl ü nehâr
Ṣaḥn-ı ṣıḥḥatde güzel ḫânumla ṣoḥbet yaraşur
Ol vücûd-ı nâzenînüñden ıraġ olsun elem
Düşmenüñe ḫâne-i ġam içre miḥnet yaraşur
Teb niçün ṭutar seni ṭutsun raḳîb-i kâfiri
Saña ṣıḥḥatler ‘adûña renc ü ẕillet yaraşur
Tîġ-i ḳahr ile ‘adûñuñ başını ḳaṭ‘ itmege
Ẕâtuña cür’et ü hem bâzûña ḳuvvet yaraşur
Nây gibi iñleyen her dem ḥasûd olsun müdâm
Çeng ü ḳânûn ile her dem saña ‘işret yaraşur
Ḥaḳ baġışlasun İlâhî seni ol vâlîdeñe
Kim anuñ bir dânesisin saña rif‘at yaraşur
Ḥamdü-lillâh kim mülâḳât oldı Mihrî Dâ‘iye
Dir görenler ẕâtuña erkân-ı devlet yaraşur

In English

1. Health befits your blessed person at every moment; ease befits your pure body at every instant.

2. In the palace of your lofty station, night and day, with joy and delight, in the breadth of good health, conversation with your fair lady befits you. ("Ḫânum" can be read as "my lady" or as "lady, my sovereign"; with the second reading: "conversation with my fair sovereign befits you.")

3. May pain be far from your delicate being; hardship in the house of sorrow befits your enemy.

4. Why should the fever seize you? Let it seize that infidel rival. Health upon health befits you; illness and humiliation befit your enemy.

5. To strike off your enemy's head with the sword of wrath, courage befits your person and strength befits your arm.

6. May the envious one moan like a reed flute at every moment; for you, an işret (a gathering of wine and music) with harp and qanun befits every hour.

7. O God, may the Truth grant you to that mother of yours (may He spare you for her sake); for you are her only one, and exaltation befits you.

8. Praise be to God, I, Mihrî, your suppliant, have been granted a meeting. Those who see you say, "To this person, a place among the pillars of the state befits." (The second line can also be understood: "The pillars of the state befit him and serve him.")

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The twenty-second ghazal (gazel) of the divan has eight couplets (beyit) and, like the previous ghazal, is written in the remel meter of the aruz (quantitative metre), in the pattern "Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilün". The redif (refrain word) is the verb "yaraşur" (befits); the rhyme is built from Arabic-derived words ending in "-at/-et": ṣıḥḥat, râḥat, ṣoḥbet, miḥnet, ẕillet, ḳuvvet, ‘işret, rif‘at, devlet. That the redif is a verb turns each couplet into a wish of the form "this befits you, that befits your enemy" and gives the poem a prayer-like mood from beginning to end.

In Arslan's edition the ghazal is found only in the Istanbul University manuscript (Ü 32a). Sabiha Gemici likewise notes in her thesis that this ghazal appears only in manuscript Ü and in the text on which Maştakova's 1967 edition is based; the text Gemici designates "S" is not Arslan's S (the Ayasofya manuscript). Given that manuscript Ü contains 206 ghazals, it is not surprising that this poem did not enter F, M and S, which hold fewer ghazals.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

Although the poem has the form of a ghazal addressed to a beloved, its content is a "get well soon" letter. Studying the names of illnesses in Mihrî's divan, Gülşen Kaya notes that "teb", meaning fever (malaria), appears in this ghazal written to a prince on account of his illness. The fourth couplet is the centre of the poem: "Teb niçün ṭutar seni ṭutsun raḳîb-i kâfiri." Here the verb "to seize" is used twice in the sense of illness taking hold of a person, and the poet voices her wish as a request for transfer. Health befits the beloved; illness and humiliation befit the rival. This opposition runs through the whole poem: in the third couplet pain is far from the beloved and hardship is in the enemy's house; in the sixth, moaning is the envious one's share and a musical gathering is the praised one's. The reed flute, harp and qanun in the sixth couplet are an example of tenasüp (congruence of images, bringing together words related in meaning); the moaning sound of the reed flute is also likened to the state of the envious one.

Kaya presents the phrase "tîġ-i ḳahr" (sword of wrath) in the fifth couplet as a compound generally used in the divan to describe the strength of the person praised. The mention of the sword, courage and strength of arm suggests that the person addressed is not an ordinary beloved but a ruler or a military prince. The seventh couplet gives the clearest clue on this point: "May the Truth grant you to that mother of yours, you are her only one." Kaya says that the word "vâlide" (mother) appears in the divan only in this couplet and refers to the prince's mother. The phrase "bir dânesi" carries, as in present-day Turkish, the sense of "unique, very precious"; it need not state that he was an only child.

The last couplet makes the poem look as if written after a visit: "Ḥamdü-lillâh kim mülâḳât oldı Mihrî Dâ‘iye" (Praise be to God, a meeting took place with Mihrî your suppliant). "Dâ‘î" (one who prays for another) is a humble epithet divan poets used of themselves in poems written to the great. The poet either visited the ailing great man or came before him after his recovery, and poured this joy into the poem; the text does not settle which.

Historical Context

The name of the person addressed in the ghazal is not given. According to Kaya's interpretation the poem was written to a prince, but which prince is not stated. Among the princes to whom Mihrî presented poems, the one named most often in the divan is Prince Ahmed, governor (sancakbeyi) of Amasya; Arslan writes that of seventeen kasides (kaside) one, and as far as can be told from their content three ghazals, were presented to him. Kaya counts these three ghazals as 147, 168 and 196; this ghazal is not in that list. The divan also contains poems written to Ahmed's son, Prince Süleyman. For this reason it is not settled in the sources whether the ghazal was written to Ahmed, to Süleyman, or to some other great man. When the illness occurred is also not known.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Mehmet Arslan (ed.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları (Kültür Eserleri Dizisi 576), 2018, p. 62, Gazel 22 (Ü 32a); introduction p. 6. ekitap.ktb.gov.tr

Academic studies

  • Gülşen Kaya, Mihrî Hâtun Divânı'nın Tahlili, master's thesis, Fırat Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Elazığ 2010, pp. 59-61, 98, 100, 294. openaccess.firat.edu.tr
  • Sabiha Gemici, Mihrî Hatun Divanı: Karşılaştırmalı Metin, Cümle Yapısı ve Cümle Türleri, doctoral thesis, Uludağ Üniversitesi, Balıkesir 1990, pp. 464-465 (ghazal 23 in Gemici).

Online sources