Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Ḫurrem iden ‘âlemi cânâ cemâlüñ bâġıdur
Dostum ‘uşşâḳa raḥm itgil ki ḥüsnüñ çaġıdur
Bülbül iñler ḫârdan ben aġlaram aġyârdan
Müstedâm olsun bizümle ḫayli derd ortaġıdur
Rîsmân zülfüñle niçün baġlıdur boynum didüm
Gösterüp çeşmin didi bu kâfirüñ ṭutsaġıdur
Ḥasretinden aġlaram sen Yûsuf'uñ Ya‘ḳûb-veş
Gözlerüm yaşı dükenmez ṣanki Nîl ırmaġıdur
Çekmez idi bir nefes ḫâruñ cefâsın neylesün
Lîki bülbül gülsitân içre gülüñ ṭutsaġıdur
Bezm-i ḥüsnüñe vücûdum şem‘adur pervâne dil
Bu yanan cânum fetîlidür yüregüm yaġıdur
Dehr elinden bir ṣafâ câmını nûş itdürmedüñ
Ṣunduġuñ her dem felek Mihrî'ye biñ ṭâs aġıdur

In English

1. Beloved, the garden of your beauty is what makes the world flourish. My friend, take pity on your lovers, for this is the very season of your loveliness. (Beauty passes away together with youth; the lover asks the beloved to show mercy while this season lasts.)

2. The nightingale laments because of the thorn, and I weep because of the rivals. Let the nightingale stay with us always; it shares many of our sorrows.

3. I asked, "Why is my neck bound with the rope of your tress?" Pointing to her eye, she said, "This is the captive of that unbeliever." (The beloved's eye is likened to an unbeliever for its blackness and cruelty; the lover is that unbeliever's prisoner.)

4. I weep from longing for you, like Jacob weeping for Joseph; the tears of my eyes never run dry, as if they were the river Nile. (Jacob, who wept for years after losing his son Joseph, is a symbol of grief and yearning; the beloved is likened to Joseph and the lover to Jacob.)

5. The nightingale would not endure the torment of the thorn for a single breath; but what can it do, in the rose garden it is the rose's captive.

6. In the gathering of your beauty my being is a candle and my heart the moth; this burning soul of mine is the wick, and my heart its fat.

7. O heavens, from the hand of time you never let me drink a cup of delight; what you offer Mihrî at every moment is a thousand bowls of poison.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The thirty-second ghazal (gazel) in Arslan's edition has seven couplets (beyit) and is recorded in all four manuscripts (F 39a, M 56a, S 42a, Ü 35a). Its metre is the same "Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilün" pattern as the preceding ghazal. The redif (refrain word) is the suffix "-dur"; the rhyme is built on the sound "-aġı" in the words bâġı, çaġı, ortaġı, ṭutsaġı, ırmaġı, yaġı and aġı. The word "ṭutsaġı" serves as a rhyme twice, in the third and fifth couplets. The repetition does not look accidental: in the third couplet the lover is the captive of the beloved's unbelieving eye, in the fifth the nightingale is the captive of the rose, and the same word builds a bridge between lover and nightingale. Nothing is known about whom the poem was written for or when.

According to Arslan's footnotes, the fifth and sixth couplets are missing from manuscript F. In manuscripts M and S the second line of the fifth couplet differs: "Gül yüzüñ gülşende cânâ bülbülüñ ṭutsaġıdur". Because of the page layout of the edition, these footnotes are printed at the bottom of the same page as the notes of the preceding ghazal; the reading clearly belongs to the fifth couplet of this ghazal.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The couplets of the ghazal work through several well-known conceits of divan poetry in turn. The second and fifth couplets contain the triad of rose, nightingale and thorn. As Gülşen Kaya explains, in this triad the beloved is the rose, the rival is the thorn and the lover is the nightingale; the nightingale does not wish to suffer the thorn's cruelty but cannot leave the garden because it is the rose's captive. Kaya illustrates the idea with precisely the fifth couplet. In the second couplet the lover regards the nightingale, which laments as he does, as a companion in grief: the nightingale weeps because of the thorn, the lover because of the rivals.

The fourth couplet contains a telmih, an allusion to a well-known story. Kaya notes that in Mihrî's divan the prophet Jacob appears as a symbol of sorrow and grief, representing the lover through his pain and tears of longing for his son, while the beloved is likened to Joseph, and she cites this couplet as an example. The choice of the Nile is also consistent with the story, since Joseph spent much of his life in Egypt. The comparison of tears to a river is a fine example of exaggeration (mübalağa).

The sixth couplet builds the candle and moth comparison piece by piece. The lover's being is the candle, his heart the moth, his soul the wick of the candle and his heart's fat the tallow that feeds it. Kaya takes this couplet as an example when showing that, with the compound "bezm-i hüsn" (gathering of beauty), Mihrî thinks of the beloved's face as an assembly in which all beauties come together. The comparison expresses the lover's complete dedication to burning: all the parts of the candle are consumed together.

In the last couplet the complaint turns from the beloved to the heavens. Kaya cites this couplet in her discussion of the heavens (felek): the heavens have never offered the lover a cup of delight and have given him nothing but a thousand bowls of poison. The opposition (tezat) between "ṣafâ câmı" (cup of joy) and "ṭâs aġı" (a bowl of poison), and the congruence of images (tenasüp) among the words "câm", "nûş itmek" and "ṣunmak", which evoke the wine gathering, build the couplet. The third couplet, for its part, contains a brief dialogue: the lover asks, the beloved answers, and she completes her reply by pointing with her eye instead of speaking. Kaya uses this couplet to explain that the eye, for its blackness and cruelty, is likened to an unbeliever, and that the lover is counted as the captive of this unbeliever.

Bibliography

  • Mehmet Arslan (ed.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları (Kültür Eserleri Dizisi 576), 2018, p. 67-68, Gazel 32 (F 39a, M 56a, S 42a, Ü 35a) 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 (sections on Jacob, bezm, eye, heavens and nightingale). openaccess.firat.edu.tr