Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mef‘ûlü Fâ‘ilâtü Mefâ‘îlü Fâ‘ilün

Çeşmüme dil uyup ruḫ-ı dildâra gitdiler
Göz göre gör beni nice odlara atdılar
Dil düzdi bâġ-ı ḥüsnine el ṣunmasun deyü
Zülf-i siyâh-ı mârı gülistânda yatdılar
Gül ruḫlarına beñzerem anuñ dimiş meger
Sûsenler üstine yüriyüp dil uzatdılar
Nâzüklük ile mîvesin aldum dehânınuñ
Gör bâġ-bânı ya‘ni ki uġrı gözetdiler
Öldürmege götürdi deyü müdde‘îyi yâr
Çeşmiyle ġamzesi baña birden göz itdiler
Didüm raḳîbi dâra ‘aceb aṣdılar m'ola
Bir ḫayr aġızlu didi ki çoḳdan uzatdılar
Deprendügince ḳût virür câna leblerüñ
Şîrîn sözüñ kelâmına şekker mi ḳatdılar
Bî-mihri Mihrî sevme didüm pend ṭutmaduñ
Her cevri ki'tdiler saña anlar ḫoş itdiler

In English

1. My heart followed my eye, and together the two went to the beloved's cheek; see, in plain sight they threw me into what fires. (The beloved's red cheek is likened to fire for its redness. The idiom "göz göre" (in plain sight, before one's eyes) gains a second meaning because one of the culprits is the eye.)

2. So that the thieving heart would not reach toward the garden of beauty, they laid a snake-black lock beside the rose garden. (The cheek is likened to the rose garden, and the black lock falling over the cheek to a snake guarding the garden.)

3. The rose must have said, "I resemble her cheeks"; at that the irises advanced upon the rose and stuck out their tongues at it. (The long, pointed leaves of the iris are likened to tongues. "Dil uzatmak" (to stick out the tongue) means both the stretching of the leaves and hurling words.)

4. I took the fruit of her mouth delicately, coquettishly; see, the gardeners kept watching for the thief. The couplet can be read in two ways: while the garden's keepers keep an eye out for the thief, the lover has taken the fruit all the same; or it tells how, after the lover took the fruit, the gardener began to watch him as a thief.

5. As if to say, "The beloved has taken the rival to be killed," her eye and her languid glance (gamze) winked at me at the same moment.

6. I said, "Can it be that they hanged the rival on the gallows?" One of good tongue said, "Long since they stretched him out." (Here "uzatmak" describes the hanged man stretching out on the rope; the same verb meant "to stick out the tongue" in the third couplet.)

7. As your lips move they give nourishment to the soul; have they put sugar into your sweet speech? ("Kût" means the provision that sustains life. "Şîrîn" means both sweet and pleasing.)

8. "O Mihrî, do not love that loveless, faithless one," I said, but you did not heed my counsel. The couplet can be read in two ways: whatever torment they inflicted on you, they inflicted rightly, you deserved it; or whatever torment they inflicted on you, you found pleasant and endured.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The thirtieth ghazal (gazel) of Arslan's edition has eight couplets (beyit) and is found in all four manuscripts (F 37a, M 52a, S 39b, Ü 34b). Its metre is the aruz (quantitative metre) pattern "Mef‘ûlü Fâ‘ilâtü Mefâ‘îlü Fâ‘ilün"; this long pattern, the most often used in divan poetry, suits narrative and conversation. The redif (refrain word) is the plural past-tense ending "-dılar/-diler"; the rhyme is made by the "-t" sound in words such as atdı, yatdı, uzatdı, gözetdi, ḳatdı. Two of the rhyme words are repeated in the poem with different meanings: "uzatdılar" in the third couplet means "stuck out the tongue", and in the sixth the stretching out of a hanged man on the rope; "itdiler" is part of the idiom "göz etmek" (to wink) in the fifth couplet and "hoş etmek" (to find pleasant) in the last. There is no information on whom the poem was written for or on what occasion.

What stands out in the ghazal is that it is built from small scenes. In most couplets something happens: heart and eye go to the cheek, someone lays a snake beside the garden, irises advance on the rose, eye and glance wink at each other, the lover asks someone a question and gets an answer. The sixth and eighth couplets are short conversations opened with "didüm" (I said). This liveliness lifts the ghazal out of the repetition of a single feeling and brings it near an eventful narrative.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The poem's images rest on thinking of the beloved's face as a garden. Studying Mihrî's likening of hair to a snake, Gülşen Kaya gives the second couplet as an example: because the black, long and wavy hair covers the face, it is thought of as a snake guarding a treasure or a garden, and the lover's heart becomes the thief who wishes to enter this garden. The words "bâġ-bân" (gardener) and "uġrı" (thief) in the fourth couplet carry on the same likeness; the beloved's mouth is the fruit of this garden. Thus the concepts of garden, fruit, thief and guard are tied to one another through the couplets (tenasüp, congruence of images).

The third couplet is a fine example of finding a poetic cause for a natural event. As Kaya notes, the long, pointed leaves of the iris are likened to tongues in divan poetry. The poet interprets the irises' stretching out their leaves toward the rose as a reaction to the rose's audacity in likening itself to the beloved's cheek. Putting an imaginary cause in the place of the real one is called hüsn-i ta‘lîl. In the same couplet that rose and iris speak and advance shows that human traits are given to them (teşhis, personification).

In the seventh couplet the relation between lips and speech is built through taste. Kaya cites this couplet when she notes that in Mihrî's divan lips are likened to sugar in taste and the sweet speech coming from the mouth is described in this way.

The mildly mocking air of the sixth couplet adds a separate colour to the ghazal. The lover asks anxiously whether the rival was drawn to the gallows, and one "of good tongue" gives her the glad tidings, as it were, that the rival was long since hanged. Taken together with the previous couplet, in which eye and glance wink at the lover to announce that the rival is being taken away to be killed, a short scene in the middle of the poem imagining the rival's punishment is seen to be built.

In the last couplet a wordplay is made with the pen name: "bî-mihr" (loveless, faithless) and "Mihrî" come side by side. Because "mihr" means both love and the sun, the poet's pen name is often the object of such plays in her poems. The lover here turns into a voice that advises herself; the advice has not been heeded, and the torment has become unavoidable.

The differences among the manuscripts at times change the sense. In the second couplet manuscript F reads "yâri" (beloved) in place of "mârı" (snake). In the third couplet manuscript Ü has "beñzedüm" (I likened) in place of "beñzerem" (I resemble); Havlioğlu's electronic text also gives this reading and reads "ḳuvvet virür" in place of "ḳût virür" in the seventh couplet. In the fifth couplet manuscript F records "atdılar" in place of "itdiler".

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Mehmet Arslan (ed.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları (Kültür Eserleri Dizisi 576), 2018, pp. 66-67, Gazel 30 (F 37a, M 52a, S 39b, Ü 34b) 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 (sections on mâr, sûsen and sugar). openaccess.firat.edu.tr

Books

  • Didem Havlioğlu (ed.), Ġazeliyyât-ı Mihrî-i Ḥaḳîre, OTAP electronic edition, ghazal 31 (text published on the türkoloji-iran page, 2007).

Online sources