Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mef‘ûlü Fâ‘ilâtün Mef‘ûlü Fâ‘ilâtün

Ḫaṭṭuñ benefşe ḫaddüñ ḫoş yâsemîne beñzer
Gülzâr-ı ḥüsnüñ ey dost cennet içine beñzer
Ḥaḳḳın di ey felek sen gördüñ mi devr idelden
Ḫalḳ-ı cihânda bir ḫûb bu nâzenîne beñzer
Yüzüñ görüp ḥasedden bedr olmasun ḳamer hîç
Öykünmek ile ḳaçan sen meh-cebîne beñzer
Ḥalḳ'oldı fürḳatüñden ḳaddüm benüm i bî-raḥm
Baġruñ senüñ ‘acebdür seng-i nigîne beñzer
‘Aşḳuñ yolında cânâ cân virdügüm görenler
Dir ehl-i ‘aşḳ içinde Mihrî güzîne beñzer

In English

1. The fine down on your cheek resembles the violet, and your cheek resembles a lovely jasmine; O friend, the rose garden of your beauty resembles the inside of paradise. ("Ḫaṭ" is the fine down that has just appeared on the cheek; its dark colour is likened to the violet. The white cheek is likened to jasmine.)

2. Tell the truth, O heavens: since you began to turn, have you seen among the people of the world a beauty who resembles this delicate beloved?

3. Having seen your face, let the moon, out of envy, never try to become a full moon again; by imitation, when could it ever resemble a moon-browed beauty like you?

4. O pitiless one, my stature has bent into a ring because of your separation; your heart, strange to say, resembles the stone of a ring. (The lover, bent double, is likened to the hoop of a ring, and the beloved's hard heart to the hard stone set in its middle.)

5. O beloved, those who saw me give my life on the road of your love say, "Among the people of love, Mihrî resembles one of the chosen."

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The thirty-third ghazal (gazel) in Arslan's edition is a short poem of five couplets (beyit) and appears in all four manuscripts (F 43b, M 60b, S 46a, Ü 35a); the edition records no manuscript variants for this ghazal. Its metre is the pattern "Mef‘ûlü Fâ‘ilâtün Mef‘ûlü Fâ‘ilâtün". This pattern divides each line into two identical halves; the pauses in the middle of the lines ("Ḫaṭṭuñ benefşe / ḫaddüñ ḫoş yâsemîne") give the reading a regular, almost song-like rhythm. The redif (refrain word) is "beñzer" (resembles); the rhyme is built on the sound "-îne" in the words yâsemîne, içine, nâzenîne, meh-cebîne, nigîne and güzîne. Nothing is known about whom the poem was written for or when.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

Because the redif is itself a word of comparison, all the couplets of the ghazal are built on a simile (teşbih); the poem can be read as a series listing what the beloved resembles and what does not resemble her. In the first couplet the parts of the face are likened one by one to flowers, and then the whole face is tied to the garden of paradise. Gülşen Kaya observes that in Mihrî's divan the garden and the rose garden stand for the garden of the beloved's face, that this garden is likened to paradise and is even held to surpass it in beauty, and she gives this opening couplet as an example. The closeness in sound between "ḫaṭṭ" and "ḫadd" also forms a small wordplay at the start of the line.

The second and third couplets reverse the comparison: it is no longer said what the beloved resembles, but that nobody can resemble her. In the second couplet the heavens, that is, the ever-turning sky, are addressed; the phrase "devr idelden" (since it began to turn) expresses at once the turning of the heavens and the beginning of time, and the answer to the question is obvious. In the third couplet the moon is imagined as a rival that envies the beloved's face and tries to become a full moon in order to imitate it. The phases of the moon are interpreted as its vain effort to resemble the beloved; this is an example of hüsn-i ta‘lîl (fantastic aetiology), which puts an imaginary cause in place of the real one. Ranking the beloved above the moon is an exaggeration to which divan poetry often resorts.

The fourth couplet is where the harmony between words is most tightly constructed. "Ḥalḳa" (ring, hoop) and "nigîn" (the stone of a ring) are the two parts of a ring: the lover, bent double by separation, resembles the hoop, and the beloved's stone-hard heart resembles the stone that the hoop embraces. Kaya explains the likening of the beloved's bosom to "seng-i nigîn" by her indifference to the lover who is bent double with longing for her. Hoop and stone are joined to each other, yet one has bowed while the other has kept its hardness; the couplet expresses this distance within closeness through the parts of a single object. The sound similarity of "ḥalḳa" with "ḫalḳ" (people) in the second couplet is also noteworthy.

In the last couplet the speech returns to the poet herself. The pen-name (mahlas) couplet speaks through the mouths of others: those who have seen her give her life on the road of love count Mihrî among the chosen of the people of love. Thus the measure "resembles" that has been applied to the beloved throughout the poem is finally applied to the lover as well; the beloved is without equal in beauty, the lover in self-sacrifice. In Didem Havlioğlu's electronic text, the address in the fourth couplet is read as "ey" instead of the "i" of the edition.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Mehmet Arslan (ed.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları (Kültür Eserleri Dizisi 576), 2018, p. 68, Gazel 33 (F 43b, M 60b, S 46a, Ü 35a). 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 the garden, the rose garden and the qualities of the beloved). openaccess.firat.edu.tr

Books

  • Didem Havlioğlu (ed.), Ġazeliyyât-ı Mihrî-i Ḥaḳîre, OTAP electronic edition, ghazal 34 (text published on the türkoloji-iran page, 2007).

Online sources