Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Gerçi dil mecrûḥdur hecrüñle gözde nem de var
Ḥamdü-lillah kim viṣâlüñden aña merhem de var
Dil ġarîbin nâr-ı hicrân ger yaḳarsa ġam yime
Saña ey ḳanlu yaşum âhum gibi hem-dem de var
Tîġ-i ḳahruñdan cigerler pârelendi gerçi âh
Āteş-i ‘aşḳuñ yanar sînemde gûyâ dem de var
Atmasun mı tîr-i ġamzeñden kemân-ebrûlaruñ
Yalıñuz cânum degül aña hedef sînem de var
Hem-dem olduñsa ḥabîbe ġırre olma müdde‘î
Bu cihândur şâdlıḳ ṣoñunda lâ-büd ġam da var
Sâye-i dildâr ile germ olma sen ‘âşıḳlara
Dilberüñ la‘li nebâtın dişlemiş âdem de var
Bu cihân bâġında Mihrî nice nâlân olmasun
Bir senüñ gibi ḫuṣûṣâ ġonca-leb gül-fem de var

In English

1. Though my heart is wounded by your separation and there is moisture (tears) in my eye, thanks be to God, there is also a salve for it in your union.

2. If the fire of separation burns the heart of the stranger (the lover), do not grieve; O my bloody tears, you too have a companion, as my sighs are. (The couplet can be read in two ways: the words "do not grieve" may be addressed to the heart or to the tears; in both readings it says that beside the burning heart, tears and sighs keep each other company.)

3. Ah, though livers have been torn to pieces by the sword of your wrath, the fire of your love burns in my breast, as if there were also a breath (dem) to feed it. (In Persian dem means breath, the air a bellows blows; in Arabic it means blood. Manuscript F reads "suffices" in place of "burns".)

4. Should your bow-shaped brows not shoot the arrow of your glance? My life is not its only target; my breast is a target too.

5. O rival, if you have become the beloved's companion, do not be deceived by it; this is the world, and after joy there is surely grief as well.

6. Do not grow heated against the lovers while you shelter in the beloved's shadow (do not swagger); there is also a man who has bitten the sugar of the beloved's lip. (A pun: âdem means both "man, person" and Adam; the couplet alludes to Adam's eating of the forbidden fruit. Manuscripts F, M and Ü read olmasun ("let it not be") in place of olma sen ("do not be").)

7. In this world's garden, how could Mihrî not lament, especially when there is one such as you, bud-lipped and rose-mouthed?

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The forty-fourth ghazal of the divan has seven couplets and is written in the remel metre of aruz (quantitative metre), in the pattern "Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilün". The rhyme rests on the sound "-em/-am" (nem, merhem, hem-dem, dem, sînem, ġam, âdem, gül-fem), and the redif (refrain word) is "de var / da var" ("there is also"). The ghazal appears in all four manuscripts (F 43a, M 60a, S 45a, Ü 37b). Nothing is known about whom it was written for.

The "de var" redif shapes the poem's line of thought. In each couplet a trouble or a situation is stated first, and the second line then recalls, with "...de var", that something else exists beside it: a salve beside the wound, a companion beside the fire, a breath beside the sword, a breast beside the life, grief beside joy. This structure gives the poem a tone that moves back and forth between consolation and warning.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet is drawn from the language of medicine. The heart has been wounded by separation, and the salve is union. Gülşen Kaya observes that the divan reflects some of the treatments of its time, such as applying salve to a wound, and that here the salve is reaching the beloved; she cites this couplet as an example. The contrasts between separation and union and between wound and salve build the couplet on antithesis.

The second couplet is one that Kaya cites in three different places. She notes that the phrase "stranger heart" (dil ġarîbi) describes the lover's heart; elsewhere she says that separation is a fire burning in the oven of grief and that the lover, even as he burns in it, is at ease because he has a companion in his tears; and in her discussion of sighs she records that the companion of bloody tears is the sigh. The relation among fire, tears and sighs creates a congruence of images (tenasüp) in the couplet: fire burns, tears flow, the sigh rises like smoke.

In the third couplet the word dem appears to be used as a double entendre (tevriye). The reason the fire in the breast burns without ceasing is a dem, a breath, that feeds it like a bellows; the same word means blood in Arabic and so connects with the torn livers of the first line. The fourth couplet is taken from the world of archery. Kaya says that in the divan an archery contest held on the field is described, in nearly every couplet, through the beloved's sidelong glance and lashes, with the lover's breast and heart as the target, and she gives this couplet as an example. The brow is likened to a bow (kemân-ebrû) and the glance to an arrow; the lover does not shrink from being the target but offers his breast as one in addition to his life.

The fifth and sixth couplets are addressed to the rival. Kaya notes that a beloved who keeps company with the rival rather than with the lover is presented as a state of affairs that ought not to exist, and she mentions the fifth couplet in this context. The poet warns the rival with the changeability of the world: in this world grief surely follows joy. In the sixth couplet an allusion is made through the word âdem. According to Kaya, the divan speaks of Adam in connection with his eating the forbidden fruit, and although in divan poetry the forbidden fruit is mostly wheat, Mihrî likens the beloved's ruby-red lip to it; she gives this couplet as her example. The couplet thus carries two meanings at once: another person has tasted the beloved's lip, and that lip is like a forbidden fruit.

In the closing couplet Mihrî imagines herself as a nightingale lamenting in the garden of the world; the cause of her lament is the beloved, "bud-lipped and rose-mouthed". Kaya states that likening lips to buds rests on likening the lover and his heart, longing for those lips, to the nightingale, and she cites this couplet. The words garden, bud, rose and lamenting nightingale belong to the same garden world and close the ghazal within a congruence of images (tenasüp).

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Mehmet Arslan (ed.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları (Kültür Eserleri Dizisi 576), 2018, p. 73-74, Gazel 44 (F 43a, M 60a, S 45a, Ü 37b). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr
  • Sabiha Gemici, Mihrî Hatun Divanı: Karşılaştırmalı Metin, Cümle Yapısı ve Cümle Türleri, doctoral dissertation, Uludağ Üniversitesi, Balıkesir 1990 (comparative text of the ghazal).

Academic studies

  • Gülşen Kaya, Mihrî Hâtun Divânı'nın Tahlili, master's thesis, Fırat Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Elazığ 2010, p. 17, 98, 101, 105, 110, 180, 227, 235. openaccess.firat.edu.tr

Online sources