Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mef‘ûlü Mefâ‘îlü Mefâ‘îlü Fa‘ûlün

Bî-çâre göñül bilmezem âvâre nedendür
Dermân ne durur bilsem aña çâre nedendür
Her dem felegüñ cevri ile yâr cefâsı
Bilsem ki bu ben baḫt-ı siyeh-kâra nedendür
Çeşmi baña vaṣlını ḥarâm eyledi yârüñ
Ben ḳanı ḥelâl itdüm o ḫûn-ḫâra nedendür
Çün delmez imiş ġamzeleri ḫançeri baġrum
Pes bu yüregimde görinen yâre nedendür
Dil bülbüli nâlânlar ide ḥüsnüñe ḳarşu
Sen yüz viresin ey yüzi gül ḫâra nedendür
Ben ayaġuñı öpmege cânlar ḳılam îs̱âr
Râygân viresin bûse sen aġyâra nedendür
Mihrî çeke cevrüñi vü luṭfuñ göre aġyâr
Devlet aña ẕillet bu cefâ-kâra nedendür

In English

1. Poor heart, I do not know why you are such a wanderer. If only I knew what the remedy for your pain is; what is the cure for it?

2. At every moment the cruelty of fate and the torment of the beloved; if only I knew why these come to me, the black-fortuned. (With the reading "Bilmem" in manuscripts F and S: "I do not know why these come to me, the black-fortuned.")

3. The beloved's eye has made union with me forbidden; and I have made my blood lawful to that shedder of blood. Why?

4. If the dagger of your glances has not pierced my breast, then why is this wound visible in my heart?

5. Let the nightingale of the heart keep lamenting before your beauty; O rose-faced one, you give favour to the thorn. Why? (The thorn is the rival who never leaves the beloved's side. In manuscript S the first line reads "Let the nightingale of the soul lament in the rose garden of your cheek"; the couplet is absent from manuscript Ü.)

6. I would sacrifice lives to kiss your foot; yet you give kisses to strangers freely. Why?

7. Let Mihrî bear your torment and let strangers enjoy your kindness; good fortune to them, humiliation to this one who suffers. Why? ("Cefâ-kâr" here, like present-day "cefakâr", means one who endures torment, and stands for Mihrî.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The twenty-seventh ghazal (gazel) of the divan has seven couplets (beyit) and is written in the hezec meter of the aruz (quantitative metre), in the pattern "Mef‘ûlü Mefâ‘îlü Mefâ‘îlü Fa‘ûlün". The redif (refrain word) is the question "nedendür" (why is it); the rhyme rests on the sound "-âre/-âra": âvâre, çâre, siyeh-kâra, ḫûn-ḫâra, yâre, ḫâra, aġyâra, cefâ-kâra. The ghazal is present in all four manuscripts on which Arslan's edition is based (F 45a, M 58b, S 47a, Ü 33b). The fifth couplet is absent from manuscript Ü; in this manuscript the second line of the fifth couplet stands in place of the second line of the fourth. In manuscript S the first line of the fifth couplet is different. It is not known for whom the ghazal was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

That the redif is a question shapes the whole structure of the ghazal. In each couplet the lover sets out an injustice or a contradiction and at the end asks "why", but expects no answer. Such questions in divan poetry are close to the art of tecâhül-i ârif (feigned ignorance, pretending not to know what one knows): as is clear from within the ghazal, the lover sees the beloved's faithlessness and the rival's favoured place, but voices the reproach in the form of a question. The wordplay between "bî-çâre" and "çâre" in the first couplet is the first step of this reproach: seeking a remedy for the remedyless heart. Gülşen Kaya cites the opening couplet among couplets describing the lover's heart as mad, wandering and distraught.

The ghazal sets out step by step the classic relation of the triangle of beloved, lover and rival. In the second couplet the lover's pain comes from two sources: the cruelty of fate and the beloved's torment. Kaya gives this couplet as an example of places where the lover does not know the cause of these torments. The third couplet builds a strong antithesis with the words forbidden (haram) and lawful (helal): the beloved's eye has made union forbidden to the lover, while the lover has made her blood lawful to that blood-drinking eye. Kaya cites this couplet as an example of the words haram and helal used of the beloved in the divan. In the fourth couplet the beloved seems to say that the dagger of her glance (gamze) has not pierced the lover's breast, and the lover shows the wound in her heart as evidence. Kaya explains this couplet as an example of the glance likened to a dagger and of the lover showing her wounds against the beloved's denial.

The fifth and sixth couplets bring the rival to the front. The nightingale of the heart laments before the beloved's beauty, but the rose-faced beloved gives favour ("yüz vermek", to indulge) to the thorn. Here the idiom "yüz vermek" and the phrase "yüzi gül" (rose-faced) come side by side and make a wordplay; the congruence of images (tenasüp) among rose, nightingale and thorn completes the couplet. In the sixth couplet the lover is ready to sacrifice lives to kiss the beloved's foot, while the beloved gives kisses to strangers for nothing. Kaya cites this couplet when describing how, in the divan, the kiss is often given to the rival who takes no pains, while the lover who gives her life on the beloved's path goes without it. The pen name couplet (mahlas) gives the summary of the whole ghazal as a series of contrasts: cruelty to Mihrî, kindness to strangers; good fortune to them, humiliation to "this sufferer".

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Mehmet Arslan (ed.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları (Kültür Eserleri Dizisi 576), 2018, pp. 64-65, Gazel 27 (F 45a, M 58b, S 47a, Ü 33b) and footnotes on manuscript variants. ekitap.ktb.gov.tr

Academic studies

  • Gülşen Kaya, Mihrî Hâtun Divânı'nın Tahlili, master's thesis, Fırat Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Elazığ 2010, pp. 46, 162, 185, 209, 232. openaccess.firat.edu.tr
  • Sabiha Gemici, Mihrî Hatun Divanı: Karşılaştırmalı Metin, Cümle Yapısı ve Cümle Türleri, doctoral thesis, Uludağ Üniversitesi, Balıkesir 1990 (ghazal 28 in Gemici).

Online sources