Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Ol ṣaçı sünbül yüzi bedr aya ṣıḥḥat yaraşur
Ol ruḫı lâle lebi ḥamrâya ṣıḥḥat yaraşur
Ol güzeller içre bî-hemtâ vü ra‘nâ lâ-naẓîr
Nâzenînler serveri ġarrâya ṣıḥḥat yaraşur
Ol şeh-i ḫûbân-ı ‘âlem ḥüsn içinde bî-bedel
Ol gözi şehlâ ḳadi bâlâya ṣıḥḥat yaraşur
Ol perî-peyker melek-manẓar yüzi gül ġonca-leb
Ġamzesi oḳ ol ḳaşı hem yaya ṣıḥḥat yaraşur
Ol Süleymân-ı zamânuñ müntehâ cânânesi
Ol semen-sîmâ güzel ḥavrâya ṣıḥḥat yaraşur
İmdi Mihrî bu kelâmı cân u dilden di müdâm
Ol ṣaçı sünbül yüzi bedr aya ṣıḥḥat yaraşur

In English

1. Health befits that one with hyacinth hair and a face like the full moon; health befits that one with tulip cheeks and lips red as wine.

2. Among the beautiful, peerless, graceful and without equal, chief of the delicate ones, radiant of face: health befits that one.

3. The king of the beauties of the world, without a match in loveliness, with eyes of shehlâ (hazel, slightly cast and languid) and a tall stature: health befits that one.

4. Fairy-faced, angelic in appearance, face a rose, lips a bud, whose sidelong glance is an arrow and whose brow is a bow: health befits that one.

5. The ultimate beloved of the Solomon of the age, jasmine-faced, dark-eyed and fair: health befits that one. ("Süleymân-ı zamân" is a phrase of praise that likens rulers to the prophet Solomon.)

6. Now, O Mihrî, say these words always, from soul and heart: health befits that one with hyacinth hair and a face like the full moon.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The twenty-third ghazal (gazel) of the divan has six couplets (beyit). The metre is, as in the previous ghazal, the pattern "Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilün"; the redif (refrain word) is also the same: "ṣıḥḥat yaraşur" (health befits). The rhyme is built from words in the dative case ending in the sound "-â/-a": bedr aya, ḥamrâya, ġarrâya, bâlâya, yaya, ḥavrâya. The last line of the ghazal is an exact repetition of the first. In the pen name couplet (mahlas) the poet addresses herself, "say these words always", and gives the words to be said in the opening line; thus the poem closes where it began and stays open to repetition like a prayer.

In Arslan's edition the poem is found only in the Ankara National Library manuscript (M 54b). The 22nd ghazal, written in the same redif and metre, is found only in the Istanbul University manuscript. These two poems, which stand side by side among the divan's ghazals ending in the letter rā, appear together in no manuscript. The sources do not say for whom the ghazal was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

Each couplet of the poem lists the beloved's beauty in a run of epithets and then wishes the beloved health. In this respect the ghazal is a dense example of the descriptions in divan poetry in which beauty is told part by part: the hair is likened to hyacinth, the face to the full moon, the cheek to the tulip, the lips to the bud, the brow to the bow, the sidelong glance (gamze) to the arrow. The phrase "Ġamzesi oḳ ol ḳaşı hem yaya" in the fourth couplet is a well-known example of tenasüp (congruence of images) between arrow and bow; the bow is the brow, the arrow the glance, and together they become a weapon that strikes the lover. Gülşen Kaya cites this couplet as an example of likening the beloved's face to an angel, and explains this comparison by the beloved's beauty and by the fact that she or he is unseen, so that it is unknown whether they are imagined or real.

Most of the rhyme words are formed on the Arabic feminine adjective pattern: ḥamrâ (red), ġarrâ (bright-faced), şehlâ (shehlâ-eyed), ḥavrâ (dark-eyed beauty, with the white and black of the eye distinct). In divan poetry these words are used as fixed terms for describing the beloved; for this reason one cannot judge from them alone whether the person praised is a woman or a man. The words "semen-sîmâ" (jasmine-faced) and "ḥavrâ" in the fifth couplet recall the houris of paradise; the piling up of words that declare uniqueness, such as "bî-hemtâ" and "lâ-naẓîr" in the second couplet and "bî-bedel" in the third, also carries the praise to the level of hyperbole (mübalağa).

The most striking couplet of the poem is the fifth: "Ol Süleymân-ı zamânuñ müntehâ cânânesi". In divan poetry the phrase "Süleymân-ı zamân" (the Solomon of the age) is used to praise a ruler by the dominion and splendour of the prophet Solomon. Kaya shows that in Mihrî's divan this phrase mostly stands for the person praised, in particular Prince Süleyman, son of Prince Ahmed. In this couplet, however, the one to whom health is wished is called the "müntehâ cânâne" of the "Süleymân-ı zamân", that is, the final and highest object of his love. The couplet can be read in two ways: the beauty addressed is someone much loved by a great man regarded as the Solomon of the age; or "cânâne" is praise directed straight at the person praised, and the poet says she finds him as beautiful as "even Solomon's last beloved". The sources give no explanation on this point.

Bibliography

  • Mehmet Arslan (ed.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları (Kültür Eserleri Dizisi 576), 2018, pp. 62-63, Gazel 23 (M 54b). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr
  • Gülşen Kaya, Mihrî Hâtun Divânı'nın Tahlili, master's thesis, Fırat Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Elazığ 2010, pp. 20-21, 60-61, 128, 132, 169. openaccess.firat.edu.tr