Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Dil ser-i zülfüñe ber-dâr olmaġa cânın sürür
Ölmege yer ister uşda geldi urġanın sürür
Boynuma ṭaḳsañ n'ola cânâ kemend-i zülfüñi
‘Īd-i vaṣl irse ḳaçan her kişi ḳurbânın sürür
Târ u mâr itmiş ruḫında yâr zülf-i ‘anberin
Ṣanasın ṭâvûsdur gülşende cevlânın sürür
‘Āşıḳa ma‘şûḳ çün cevr idegelmişdür ezel
Terk-i ‘âdet eylemez her kişi erkânın sürür
Mihrî-i dil-ḫastenüñ ḥâlin ṣorarsa yâre diñ
Bir nefes ḳalmışdur ammâ âh ol cânın sürür

In English

1. The heart drags its life along to be hanged at the tip of your tress; it looks for a place to die, and here it has come, dragging its rope behind it. (The beloved's tress is likened to a gallows and its strands to the rope; the heart comes like a condemned man carrying his own noose.)

2. O beloved, what would it matter if you put the lasso of your tress around my neck? When the feast of union arrives, everyone drags along his sacrificial animal. (A sacrificial animal is led off by a rope around its neck; the lover sees the beloved's tress as a rope put round his neck and himself as the sacrifice of the feast of union.)

3. The beloved has spread her amber-scented tress in disorder over her cheek; you would think a peacock was strolling in the rose garden. ("Târ u mâr" means dishevelled; but "mâr" on its own also means snake, and recalls the likening of the tress to a snake.)

4. The beloved has been inflicting cruelty on the lover since pre-eternity; nobody gives up his habit, everyone carries on with his own custom.

5. If the beloved asks after the state of the heart-sick Mihrî, tell her: only one breath remains, but oh, he still drags his life on. The couplet can be read in two ways: even in her last breath Mihrî carries on her life; or, if "âh" (sigh) is taken as the subject, her sigh is dragging her life away, that is, she is in her death throes.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The thirty-fifth ghazal (gazel) in Arslan's edition has five couplets (beyit) and is found in all four manuscripts (F 40b, M 57a, S 42b, Ü 35b). Its metre is the pattern "Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilün". The redif (refrain word) is the verb "sürür"; the rhyme is built on the sound "-ânın" in the words cânın, urġanın, ḳurbânın, cevlânın and erkânın. The word "cânın" in the first line of the opening couplet serves as a rhyme again in the last couplet, and the poem returns to where it began, to the lover's life. Nothing is known about whom the poem was written for or when.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The real mastery of the ghazal comes from its redif. The verb "sürmek" has many meanings in Turkish, and the poet uses it in a different sense in each couplet: in the first the heart drags its life and its rope; in the second everyone drags off his sacrifice; in the third the peacock goes on strolling; in the fourth everyone carries on with his custom; in the last the lover "drives" his life, that is, either continues living or is in his death throes. Thus a single word moves between the meanings of dragging, leading away, continuing and running out.

The first two couplets turn the same object, the tress, into two different ropes. Gülşen Kaya explains that the tress is imagined as a gallows in Mihrî's divan because a life hangs from every strand, and she interprets the first couplet as follows: the heart longs to be hanged at the tip of the beloved's tress and, dragging its rope behind it, searches for a place to die. Kaya also notes that the tress is thought of as a lasso binding the lover, and that only the beloved's tress-bond can restrain the mad lover. In the second couplet this lasso becomes a sacrificial rope. As Kaya shows, in Mihrî's divan the feast referred to with the compound "îd-i vasl" (feast of union) is joy, and the animal sacrificed at this feast is the lover's life. The words "ber-dâr", "urġan", "ölmek", "kemend", "boyun" and "ḳurbân" form a mutually complementary set in these two couplets (tenasüp, congruence of images).

In the third couplet the tress is likened to a peacock strolling in a rose garden. Kaya notes that the peacock, with its dazzling and spreading feathers and the belief that it is a bird of paradise, is an element of comparison for the beloved's tress, and she gives this couplet as an example. The cheek is the rose garden, and the coloured and fragrant tress spread over it is the peacock strolling in that garden. The word "mâr" (snake) in the reduplication "târ u mâr" also calls up the tress-snake comparison that Kaya examines separately in the divan.

The fourth couplet is the only one in the ghazal that states a general judgment: the beloved's cruelty is a custom handed down since pre-eternity, and nobody gives up his custom. Citing a universally accepted truth as an example in a poem is called irsâl-i mesel; with its second line the couplet can be read like a proverb. The words "‘âdet" and "erkân" (custom, manner) also reinforce each other. In the last couplet the poet speaks of herself in the third person and addresses those around the beloved, asking them to carry news to her: Mihrî has one breath left.

The manuscript variants are at the level of spelling: in the first couplet manuscript Ü reads "seri" instead of "ser-i", F reads "işte" and M "uşṭa" instead of "uşda"; in the third couplet manuscript F records "Târ-mâr" instead of "Târ u mâr", and M "zülf-i yâr" instead of "yâr zülf-i". In Didem Havlioğlu's electronic text the redif is read as "sürer".

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Mehmet Arslan (ed.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları (Kültür Eserleri Dizisi 576), 2018, p. 69, Gazel 35 (F 40b, M 57a, S 42b, 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 the tress, the lasso, the feast, the peacock and the heart). openaccess.firat.edu.tr

Books

  • Didem Havlioğlu (ed.), Ġazeliyyât-ı Mihrî-i Ḥaḳîre, OTAP electronic edition, ghazal 36 (text published on the türkoloji-iran page, 2007).

Online sources