Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Bize meyl eyler idi geh geh o çeşmi ḳaralar
Men‘ iderler oları bir iki yüzi ḳaralar
Düşeli ‘aşḳı hevâsı ile deryâ-yı ġama
Görmedi zevraḳ-ı dil ḥadd ü kenâr u ḳaralar
Çekse zülfini ṣanem ruḫları üstine n'ola
Yaraşur Ka‘be'nüñ örtüsi ki ola ḳaralar
İtdiler ‘âşıḳ-ı şûrîdelerüñ ‘aşḳuñı pây
Ḳorḳaram vaṣluña daḫi geleler el ḳaralar
Cânı vir yâr işiginde gel i dil ṣâdıḳ iseñ
‘Āşıḳ oldur ki anuñ ṭopraġa ḳanın ḳaralar
‘Aşḳ bâbın daḫi bir vech ile taḥrîr idemez
Mihrî kim bunca zamân defter ü dîvân ḳaralar

In English

1. Those dark-eyed ones used to incline toward us now and then; one or two black-faced ones (shameless rivals) keep them from it.

2. Since the boat of the heart fell into the sea of grief by the wind of his love, it has seen neither a limit, nor a shore, nor dry land.

3. Is it any wonder that the beauty draws her hair over her cheeks? It is fitting that the covering of the Kaaba be black. (The beloved's face is likened to the Kaaba, and her black hair covering it to the Kaaba's black cloth.)

4. They trampled underfoot the love of the frenzied lovers for you; I fear that strangers will come and blacken even the meeting with you. (The line can also be understood: "black-faced strangers will lay hands on your union too.")

5. O heart, if you are loyal, come, give your life on the beloved's threshold. The true lover is the one whose blood blackens the earth, that is, whose blood is shed on the soil on the beloved's path.

6. Though Mihrî has for so long been scribbling (writing) ledgers and divans, she still cannot set the subject of love down in writing in any way.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The twenty-fifth ghazal (gazel) of the divan has six couplets (beyit) and is written in the remel meter of the aruz (quantitative metre), in the pattern "Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilün". What stands out in the ghazal is its rhyme. Every rhyming line ends with the word "ḳaralar", used seven times: twice in the opening couplet and once in each of the others. The word stays the same in spelling but carries a different meaning each time. The poem is found only in the Istanbul University manuscript (Ü 33b); it is not known for whom it was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

Mehmet Arslan, who prepared the edition, in his paper "Mihrî Hâtun Divanı'nda Sanatlı Manzumeler" presented at the Amasya Scholars Symposium held in Amasya in 2017, counts this ghazal among the poet's artful poems. Beside Mihrî's elifnâme, muvaşşah (a poem in which the first letters of the couplets, read from top to bottom, give a name), her poems written with undotted letters and her poem without the letter alif, Arslan gives this ghazal as an example of a poem written with the art of cinas, and notes that the rhyme word is used in seven different meanings in seven occurrences. Cinas is the art of using together words that are the same or similar in spelling or sound but different in meaning. Holding one word in the rhyme position through a whole ghazal and giving it a new meaning each time gives the poet a chance to show her vocabulary and the resources of the language.

The meanings divide as follows. In the first line of the opening couplet "çeşmi ḳaralar" are dark-eyed beauties; in the second line "yüzi ḳaralar" are black-faced ones, that is, rivals who do shameful things. In the phrase "bir iki yüzi ḳaralar" one also senses an allusion to the idiom "iki yüzlü" (two-faced). Gülşen Kaya cites this couplet both for the colour of the eye and for the rival's disgrace: the dark-eyed beloved sometimes inclines toward the lover, but a black-faced rival keeps her from it. In the second couplet "ḳaralar" is dry land, the opposite of a sea voyage. The boat of the heart that has fallen into the sea of grief sees neither shore nor land; Kaya mentions this couplet among the places where Mihrî likens the heart to a boat.

The third couplet builds a religious image. The beloved's face is the Kaaba, and her hair covering it is the black cloth that covers the Kaaba; here "ḳaralar" means a black-coloured covering. Kaya also notes that the word "ṣanem" (idol, beauty) in the couplet alludes to the idols that stood in the Kaaba in the pre-Islamic period. The fourth couplet is the most obscure. The lovers' love has been trampled, and the poet fears that strangers ("el") will come and blacken, that is, stain, the union too. In this couplet "ḳaralar" can be read as a verb, or as a noun meaning "black-faced strangers".

In the last two couplets the word is again a verb. In the fifth couplet the true lover is the one whose blood, when he gives his life on the beloved's threshold, blackens the earth. In the pen name couplet (mahlas), "defter ü dîvân ḳaralamak" is built on the verb "karalamak", to scribble on paper. That "dîvân" evokes both a book of poems and the ledgers in which state scribes kept records gives a depth close to double entendre (tevriye): Mihrî says that although she has for so long written a divan's worth of poems, she still cannot put the subject of love into writing. This last couplet closes the ghazal's display of art with a word of modesty.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Mehmet Arslan (ed.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları (Kültür Eserleri Dizisi 576), 2018, pp. 63-64, Gazel 25 (Ü 33b). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr

Academic studies

  • Mehmet Arslan, "Mihrî Hâtun Divanı'nda Sanatlı Manzumeler", Uluslararası Amasya Âlimleri Sempozyumu Bildiriler Kitabı II, Amasya 2017, pp. 37-38.
  • Gülşen Kaya, Mihrî Hâtun Divânı'nın Tahlili, master's thesis, Fırat Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Elazığ 2010, pp. 42, 156, 214, 249. openaccess.firat.edu.tr
  • Sabiha Gemici, Mihrî Hatun Divanı: Karşılaştırmalı Metin, Cümle Yapısı ve Cümle Türleri, doctoral thesis, Uludağ Üniversitesi, Balıkesir 1990 (ghazal 26 in Gemici).

Online sources