Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mef‘ûlü Fâ‘ilâtü Mefâ‘îlü Fâ‘ilün

Ḳaşıyla ġamzesi ṣanemüñ el bir itdiler
Ṣandûḳ-ı sînem aña nişân idüp atdılar
Aḥsend ki bir ḫadeng ile biñ pâre ḳıldılar
Cân pûtesini ṭoġrusı ṭoġru gözetdiler
‘Aşḳuñ yolında oḫ gibi ṭoġru gelen şehâ
Nâmûs şîşelerini çoḳdan uşatdılar
‘Ömrüm ṭavîline yine s̱âbit delîldür
Çün ruḫlarında zülfi ṣanemler uzatdılar
Öldürmesi muḥaḳḳaḳ idi dün raḳîbi yâr
Kim mâni‘ oldı kim bugün ipin uzatdılar
Cân şem‘asına yanduġumı dostlar görüp
Dil micmeri ile göyinüp bile tütdiler
Cân almaġ ile mi ḳoyalar seni ḫûblar
Ey Mihrî ḳatlan aḫı daḫi saña nitdiler

In English

1. Her brow and her sidelong glance joined hands, the idol of mine; they took the chest of my breast as their mark and shot. (In divan poetry the brow is likened to a bow and the gamze, the sidelong glance, to an arrow; sandûk-ı sîne is the rib cage.)

2. Bravo to them: with a single arrow they broke my breast into a thousand pieces; they aimed straight, dead straight, at the target of my life. (Pûte is the target archers aim at; the phrase toğrusı toğru describes both the arrow's straight flight and the exact hit.)

3. O king of the beautiful, those who come straight as an arrow on the road of love broke the bottles of honour long ago. (The true lover does not worry about his name being stained; "breaking the bottle of honour" means giving up one's reputation. The word "straight" conveys both the arrow's straightness and the lover's honesty.)

4. Since the beauties have let their locks grow long over their cheeks, this is again firm proof that my life will be long. (Hair is likened to life because of its length; a lock stretching over the cheek is taken as a sign of the lover's long life.)

5. Yesterday the beloved was certain to kill the rival; who intervened, that today they lengthened his rope? (The couplet can be read in two ways: since the rival is often likened to a dog in divan poetry, "lengthening his rope" may mean loosening his leash and setting him free; or the rope of the man about to be hanged is lengthened, so that his death is postponed and his life extended.)

6. When my friends saw me burning for the candle of the soul, that is, for the beloved's fire, they made their hearts into incense burners and, burning, smoked along with me. (Micmer is a censer in which aloeswood is burned; the friends' burning hearts are likened to a smoking censer.)

7. Will the beauties let you off with merely taking your life? O Mihrî, endure; wait a moment, what have they done to you yet? (Even taking one's life is counted as only the beginning of the beauties' cruelty. The word that the edition reads as "aḫı" is given as "daḫi" in manuscript Ü.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The ghazal stands forty-fifth in the Harfü'r-Râ section of the divan, where poems ending in the letter re are gathered, and has seven couplets. It is written in the metre "Mef‘ûlü Fâ‘ilâtü Mefâ‘îlü Fâ‘ilün". It is a short love poem built on a single metre and rhyme scheme, in which the two lines of the first couplet rhyme with each other and the second lines of the following couplets follow that rhyme; the poet names herself as the pen name (mahlas) in the last couplet. Here the redif (refrain word) is the plural ending "-dılar/-diler"; the rhyme rests on the "t" sound before this ending: it-, at-, gözet-, uşat-, uzat-, tüt-, nit-. It is notable that the same word "uzatdılar" is repeated with two different meanings in the fourth and fifth couplets. The ghazal is found in all four manuscripts; manuscript Ü begins the first line with "Göziyle". It is not known for whom it was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The first two couplets of the poem work out, step by step, one of the most common conceits of divan poetry, the beloved shooting the lover like an archer. The brow is the bow, the sidelong glance the arrow, and the lover's breast and life are the target. The brow and glance "joining hands", that is, acting together, rests on the inseparability of bow and arrow. Among the words brow, glance, mark, shooting, hadeng (arrow), pûte (target) and toğru there is a clear congruence of images (tenasüp). Kaya notes that in the second couplet life and breast are made targets of the beloved's glance-arrows and that a single arrow breaks the lover into a thousand pieces. In the third couplet the arrow image turns back on the lover: those who go straight as an arrow on the road of love have long since broken their bottles of honour. The arrow's straightness and the lover's honesty meet in one word, and the link between bottle and breaking completes the image.

The fourth couplet is one that Kaya cites as an example of the relation between hair and life: the lock stretching over the beloved's cheeks is taken as a sign of the length of the lover's life. In the couplet that follows at once, the same verb is used this time for the rival. The lengthening of the rival's rope takes on a mocking sense when considered together with the images of dog and rope that divan poetry attaches to the rival; Kaya too records that the rival is likened to a dog and that the rope to be put around his neck is what he deserves. In the sixth couplet the conceit of candle and moth is extended with the image of the censer: while the lover burns for the beloved's candle, his friends make their hearts into censers and smoke together with him. The words candle, burning, censer, göyinmek (to burn) and smoking again build a congruence of images.

In the pen-name couplet the poet addresses herself and speaks as if making light of what she suffers: the beauties will not be content with taking a life, and the real torment has not yet begun. The ghazal thus closes with the lover who was struck in the first couplet counselling himself to patience in the last.

Bibliography

Online sources