Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mef‘ûlü Mefâ‘îlü Mefâ‘îlü Fa‘ûlün

Ṣarrâfi de benden beter âvâre olupdur
Beñzer ḫadi dilberlerinüñ ḳara olupdur
Ḳo yüzleri aġ olmasun ol ḥîzlerüñ kim
‘Uşşâḳı ḳor iḥsânları aġyâra olupdur
Mest-i mey-i ‘aşḳ olmış u gözine getürmüş
Evkâr ṭurur arḳası dîvâra olupdur
Bir ġonca kim açılmadın anuñ bite ḫârı
Şimden girü bunlaruñ işi vara olupdur
Her bâdede cânân lebi yâdına i Mihrî
Ṣarrâfi de benden beter âvâre olupdur

In English

1. The sarraf (money-changer) too has become a wanderer, worse than I; it seems the cheeks of the beauties have turned black (down has sprouted on their cheeks). (A sarraf is one who knows the assay of gold and silver and distinguishes the valuable from the worthless. Sabiha Gemici reads the first word as "Sarrafı da". The edition does not explain whether the word is the name of a trade or the name or nickname of a person.)

2. Leave them, let the faces of those shameless ones not be white (let them be ashamed); abandoning the lovers, they have directed their favours to strangers (rivals).

3. He has become drunk on the wine of love and has brought it before his eyes; he stands with his back to the wall, just so. (Parts of the lines are uncertain: what "gözine getürmüş" describes is not clear; the first word of the second line is "Evkâr" in the edition and "Ev kâr" in Gemici's text, and its meaning cannot be settled with certainty. What is clear is that the drunkard leans on the wall and simply stands there.)

4. Like a rosebud whose thorn has grown before it has opened, from now on the business of these people seems to have reached its end. (Manuscript Ü reads "dâra" instead of "vara"; the meaning then is "their affairs have fallen into straits".)

5. O Mihrî, recalling the beloved's lip with every cup he drinks, the sarraf too has become a wanderer, worse than I.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The forty-second ghazal (gazel) of the divan has five couplets (beyit) and is written in the aruz (quantitative metre) pattern "Mef‘ûlü Mefâ‘îlü Mefâ‘îlü Fa‘ûlün", of the hezec metre. The rhyme is the sound "-âra/-ara" (âvâre, ḳara, aġyâra, dîvâra, vara), and the redif (refrain word) is "olupdur" (has become). The ghazal is found in only two manuscripts (M 55b, Ü 37a). A striking formal feature of the poem is that the first line of the opening couplet (matla) is repeated verbatim as the second line of the closing couplet; the ghazal thus closes with the words with which it began and turns back on itself like a circle. It is not known for whom or on what occasion it was written.

This ghazal is one of the poems in Mihrî's divan whose meaning is hardest to settle. The edition offers no explanation, and Gemici's comparative text reads some words differently ("Sarrafı da", "kare", "Ev kâr"). Gemici also treats the second line of the first couplet in terms of sentence structure and says that the line should be constructed as a proper sentence in the form "dilberlerinün hadi kare olacağa benzer". The commentary below therefore rests on what the text plainly says rather than on a definitive meaning.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The speaker of the ghazal talks about the beauties' loss of value and their faithlessness. In the first couplet the "blackening" of the beauties' cheeks appears to describe the growth of down on the face; Gülşen Kaya also shows in other couplets that the down (hat) covering the cheek is likened to darkness in the divan. That even the sarraf, who recognizes what is valuable, wanders aimlessly in the face of these beauties is an exaggeration expressing that the old measures of value have been disturbed. The phrase "benden beter" (worse than I) is a confession that the complainer himself has fallen into the same aimlessness.

The second couplet is written in harsh language. The word "ḥîz" is a heavy word for a shameless, immoral person; "yüzü ak olmasın" (let his face not be white) is a curse meaning let him be ashamed, disgraced. These beauties have abandoned the lovers and directed their favours to the "aġyâr", that is, strangers and rivals. In divan poetry the beloved's favouring the rival and neglecting the lover is a frequently treated complaint; in this ghazal the complaint, in its tone, almost turns into a satire.

In the fourth couplet the conceit of rose and thorn is used. The rosebud's thorn has grown before it has even opened; the appearance of something that overshadows beauty before it has been tasted is described. This comparison points in the same direction as the image of the darkening cheek in the first couplet. In the last couplet the sarraf drinks recalling the beloved's lip at every cup; the link between wine and lip is a congruence of images (tenasüp) often made in divan poetry because of the lip's redness and its power to intoxicate. The return of the matla line in this couplet reinforces the statement at the start of the ghazal like a refrain.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Mehmet Arslan (ed.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları (Kültür Eserleri Dizisi 576), 2018, p. 72-73, Gazel 42 (M 55b, Ü 37a). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr

Academic studies

  • Sabiha Gemici, Mihrî Hatun Divanı: Karşılaştırmalı Metin, Cümle Yapısı ve Cümle Türleri, doctoral thesis, Uludağ Üniversitesi, Balıkesir 1990 (comparative text of the ghazal, no. 43; note on the sentence structure of the first couplet).
  • Gülşen Kaya, Mihrî Hâtun Divânı'nın Tahlili, master's thesis, Fırat Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Elazığ 2010, p. 76, 170. openaccess.firat.edu.tr

Online sources