Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilün

Dilberüñ bâġ-ı cemâli ki ḳış u yaz açılur
Ṣan cinân gülşenidür gülleri ṭurmaz açılur
Nice şerḥ eyleyeyin ġonca dehânı ḫaberin
Nâ-gehân nâz-ı nihândan yine bir râz açılur
Ḳorḳaram la‘l-i lebinüñ ḫaberin söylemege
Nâ-gehân genc-i nihândan yine bir râz açılur
Her ḳaçan kim iderem ‘aşḳı hevâsında ṣadâ
Āhımuñ perdelerinden nice şehnâz açılur
Araram ḥüsn kitâbın ki vefâ resmi bulam
Hâ cefâ bâbı ile mes’ele-i nâz açılur
Muṣḥaf-ı ḥüsnini gördüñ çün oḳı Sûre-i Nûr
Mihrî ‘âşıḳlara ‘âlemde bu fâl az açılur

In English

1. The garden of the beloved's beauty blooms in winter and in summer; it is like the rose garden of paradise, and its roses open without ceasing. (The opening of the roses also describes the beloved parting her lips to speak.)

2. How can I describe the news of that rosebud mouth? Suddenly, out of hidden coquetry, another secret comes to light. (The rosebud mouth is like a bud that opens when she speaks. In some readings "nâr" stands in place of "nâz"; the line then means "out of the hidden fire another secret opens".)

3. I fear to speak of the news of her ruby lip; suddenly, out of the hidden treasure, another secret comes to light. (The ruby is a precious red stone and is likened to the lip; the precious stone and the hidden treasure call each other to mind.)

4. Whenever I raise my voice in the air of her love, many a shehnaz opens from the veils of my sighs. ("Hevâ" means both air, breeze, and melody; "perde" is both a fret or pitch in music and a veil; "şehnâz" is both the name of a musical mode and means "the shah's coquetry". The lover's sigh turns into a melody that voices the beloved's coquetry.)

5. I search the book of beauty to find the custom of fidelity; and look, along with the chapter of cruelty, the question of coquetry opens. ("Bâb" means both door and chapter of a book, and "mes’ele" the subject treated in a book. The lover looks for fidelity in the beloved's book and finds cruelty and coquetry.)

6. O Mihrî, you have seen the Mushaf of her beauty; then read the Sura of Light. Such a divination seldom opens for lovers in this world. (In former times the Qur'an was opened at random and an omen was taken from the page that appeared. The beloved's face is likened to the Qur'an, and the radiance of the face is expressed with the Sura of Light, whose name means "light".)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The thirty-fourth ghazal (gazel) in Arslan's edition has six couplets (beyit) and is found in only two manuscripts, M (53b) and Ü (35b). Its metre is the pattern "Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilün". The redif (refrain word) is the verb "açılur" (opens); the rhyme is built on the sound "-az" in the words yaz, ṭurmaz, râz, şehnâz, nâz and az. Nothing is known about whom the poem was written for or when.

A problem in the text of the ghazal draws attention: the second lines of the second and third couplets are almost identical ("Nâ-gehân nâz-ı nihândan yine bir râz açılur" and "Nâ-gehân genc-i nihândan yine bir râz açılur"), so that the word "râz" serves as a rhyme twice. The manuscripts do not agree here. According to Arslan's footnote, in manuscript M the second line of the second couplet begins with "Ḳorḳaram" instead of "Nâ-gehân"; this word also stands at the beginning of the first line of the third couplet. Didem Havlioğlu's electronic text reads "nâr-ı nihân" (hidden fire) instead of "nâz-ı nihân" (hidden coquetry) in the same line.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The redif gives the whole ghazal a movement of "opening": a rose opens, a secret opens, a musical mode opens, a book opens, an omen opens. The same verb is carried into a different field of meaning in each couplet, and the poem draws its strength from this variation.

The first couplet begins with the image of paradise. Gülşen Kaya notes that in Mihrî's divan paradise is used to describe the place or the beauty of the beloved, and she gives this couplet as an example. According to Kaya, the beloved's beauty (cemal) is likened to a rose garden, the roses are the lips, and the opening of the roses means the beloved's speaking; the roses are in an unending spring and are not exhausted by picking. Kaya also proposes a mystical reading of this couplet: beauty (cemal), the centre of divine manifestation, represents unity (vahdet), while the ceaseless opening of the roses points to multiplicity (kesret). This second reading is not the direct meaning of the couplet but a layer added by the interpreter.

The fourth couplet is built with the terms of music. Kaya shows that Mihrî often uses the names of musical modes, above all şehnâz, and terms such as "ṣadâ" and "perde" as double entendres (tevriye). Here "hevâ", "ṣadâ", "perde" and "şehnâz" form a musical set (tenasüp, congruence of images). Since the word "şehnâz" can be read both as the name of the mode and as "the shah's coquetry", the couplet says that melodies about the beloved's coquetry are born from the lover's lament.

The fifth and sixth couplets share the image of the book. In the fifth couplet the beloved's beauty is a book: the lover looks in it for the custom of fidelity, but as he opens its pages "the chapter of cruelty" and "the question of coquetry" come out. The words "kitâb", "bâb", "mes’ele" and "resm" complement one another. In the sixth couplet this book turns into the holy book. Kaya notes that in Mihrî's divan the expressions "Mushaf", "hüsn kitabı" (book of beauty), "Mushaf-ı hüsn" and "cemâl mushafı" liken the beloved's face to the Qur'an, and that the custom of opening the holy book for divination according to one's intention is also mentioned; she gives this couplet as the example, among the allusions to Qur'anic verses, in which the name of the Sura of Light is mentioned directly. When the beloved's face is the Mushaf, the radiance of this face corresponds to the Sura of Light. The word "fâl" combines with the redif "açılur" to form the idiom "fal açılmak" (an omen is cast); in the pen-name (mahlas) couplet, both the opening of the book and the opening of fortune are thus expressed together.

The other manuscript variants are minor: manuscript M reads "eyleyeyim" instead of "eyleyeyin" and "dehânuñ" instead of "dehânı" in the second couplet, and "Muṣḥafı" instead of "Muṣḥaf-ı" in the sixth.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Mehmet Arslan (ed.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları (Kültür Eserleri Dizisi 576), 2018, p. 68-69, Gazel 34 (M 53b, Ü 35b) 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 verses, paradise, music and divination). openaccess.firat.edu.tr

Books

  • Didem Havlioğlu (ed.), Ġazeliyyât-ı Mihrî-i Ḥaḳîre, OTAP electronic edition, ghazal 35 (text published on the türkoloji-iran page, 2007).

Online sources