Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Bir ṣanem egnine almış sîm ü zer ḳaftânlar
Yaraşur yolında ḳurbân olsa yüz biñ cânlar
Bu libâsuñ vaṣfın işitse meleklerden revân
Çâk ideydi ḥullesini ḥûri vü ġılmânlar
Kevkeb-i seyyâre-veş seyr eyledükçe gündüzin
Ṭolmış idi her ṭarafdan mâh ile meydânlar
Başumı ṭop eylemişdüm ben egerçi çalmaġa
Dil-rübâlar eylemişdi zülfini çevgânlar
Dergehüñden dilberâ dûr itme Mihrî bendeñi
Gerçi çoḳdur âsitânuñda senüñ der-bânlar

In English

1. A beauty has put on kaftans embroidered with silver and gold; a hundred thousand lives would well be sacrificed on her path. (Manuscript M reads "geymiş", that is "has worn", in place of "almış".)

2. If the houris and the youths of paradise (ġılmân) heard the praise of this garment from the angels, they would at once tear their own garments of paradise. (Out of jealousy.)

3. As she went about in the daytime like a planet, setting out for a stroll, the squares were filled on every side with moon-like beauties. (With the reading "seyyâreyi" in manuscript M: "as she set out to go round and see the planet.")

4. I, for my part, had made my head a ball to be struck; and the heart-ensnaring beauties had made their locks the çevgân (a stick with a curved end) to strike that ball.

5. O beloved, do not drive your servant Mihrî from your door; though at your threshold your doorkeepers are many.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The twenty-sixth ghazal (gazel) of the divan has five couplets (beyit) and is written in the pattern "Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilün". The rhyme rests on the sound "-ân" and the redif (refrain word) on the plural suffix "-lar": ḳaftânlar, cânlar, ġılmânlar, meydânlar, çevgânlar, der-bânlar. The poem is found in the Ankara National Library (M 59a) and Istanbul University (Ü 33b) manuscripts; the differences between them are limited to one word each in the first and third couplets. It is not known for whom the ghazal was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal treats a subject rarely met in divan poetry, the beloved's clothing. The first couplet shows the beauty in kaftans embroidered with silver and gold. Listing the descriptions of the beloved's outward appearance in the divan, Gülşen Kaya notes, on the basis of this couplet, that she wears kaftans of silver and gold. The costly garment makes the beloved look like a wealthy person of high station, and the poet says that a hundred thousand lives would befit being sacrificed on the path of such a one.

The second couplet compares this garment with paradise. The houris and youths (ġılmân) who will serve believers in paradise, if they heard the praise of the beloved's dress from the angels, would tear their own paradise garments (ḥulle). Gülşen Kaya gives this couplet as an example of the idea that houris and youths tear their paradise clothes in jealousy before the beloved's beauty; in her section on articles of clothing she cites it again as an example of the houris' jealousy on seeing the beloved's attire.

The third couplet describes the beloved's daytime outing through the sky. The beloved is likened to the "kevkeb-i seyyâre", the planet that changes place in the heavens; the beauties who come to see her are moons filling the squares. Kaya cites this couplet as an example of beauties who go out for a stroll being likened to the stars and moon appearing by day. The link thus made between planet, moon and daytime is an example of tenasüp (congruence of images); and the sight of moon and stars in daylight is also a hyperbole that conveys the beloved's extraordinary quality.

The fourth couplet rests on the game of "gûy u çevgân" (ball and mallet). As Kaya reports, this game is played in teams, on horseback, by striking a ball (gûy) with a stick with a curved end (çevgân). Kaya notes that in Mihrî's divan this is the most used game image, with the ball generally standing for the lover's head and the çevgân for the beloved's curved brow or hair. In this couplet the lover has made her head a ball, and the beauties have made their curled locks the çevgân to strike it. The word "meydân" in the third couplet recalls the field on which the game is played and so links the two couplets. In the pen name couplet (mahlas) the poet asks the beloved, who has many doorkeepers at her door, not to drive her from the threshold. The images of door, threshold and doorkeeper are in keeping with the kaftan of the first couplet, which shows the beloved as master of a palace.

Bibliography

  • Mehmet Arslan (ed.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları (Kültür Eserleri Dizisi 576), 2018, p. 64, Gazel 26 (M 59a, Ü 33b) and footnotes on manuscript variants. ekitap.ktb.gov.tr
  • Gülşen Kaya, Mihrî Hâtun Divânı'nın Tahlili, master's thesis, Fırat Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Elazığ 2010, pp. 31, 108-109, 128, 141, 268, 293. openaccess.firat.edu.tr