Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Bizden ḳaçurur ḥüsnini dilber ne ḳolaysuz
Bülbülden ıraġ oldı gül-i ter ne ḳolaysuz
Ḳahrın çeke ḥadden aşurı ‘âşıḳ-ı ṣâdıḳ
Luṭfın göre her câhil ü ebter ne ḳolaysuz
Biñ yerde dilüm delmiş iken ġamzesi tîri
Ceşmi de ura sîneme ḫançer ne ḳolaysuz
Yoḳ yire dehânı ḫaberin itdi deyü fâş
Düşürdi bizi dillere eller ne ḳolaysuz
Şîrin lebin aġyâra ṣunar Mihrî'ye ṣunmaz
Ṭûṭî baḳa ḳarġa yiye şekker ne ḳolaysuz

In English

1. The beauty withholds her loveliness from us; how unseemly. The fresh rose has gone far from the nightingale; how improper.

2. That the faithful lover should suffer her wrath beyond all measure while every ignorant and worthless man (ebter: a worthless person, one who comes to no good) sees her kindness; how unseemly.

3. When her glance's arrow has pierced my heart in a thousand places, that her eye should also strike a dagger into my breast; how merciless.

4. Strangers, saying "he has divulged the secret of her mouth for nothing", have made us the talk of the town; how unseemly. (Yok yire means both "for nothing, in vain" and "to the nonexistent": the beloved's mouth is so small that it is counted as nonexistent; the couplet works both senses together.)

5. She offers her sweet lip to strangers (rivals) and does not offer it to Mihrî; the parrot looks on while the crow eats the sugar; how improper.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The fifty-fourth ghazal of the divan has five couplets and is written in the hezec metre of aruz (quantitative metre), in the pattern "Mef‘ûlü Mefâ‘îlü Mefâ‘îlü Fa‘ûlün". The rhyme is the sound "-er" (dilber, ter, ebter, ḫançer, eller, şekker), and the redif (refrain word) is the phrase "ne ḳolaysuz". The ghazal, that is, the short love poem in which both lines of the first couplet rhyme and only the second lines of the other couplets follow that rhyme, stays here at its narrowest measure of five couplets, and the poet's pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet. The edition rests on manuscripts M (63b) and Ü (40a); in Havlioğlu's OTAP text it is given as ghazal 56, from three manuscripts. The 55th ghazal, which follows directly, is written in the same metre and with the same redif; Sıtkı Nazik records the two together in his list of Mihrî's redifs. Nothing is known about whom it was written for.

The word "ḳolaysuz" in the redif is not in use today. Judged by its place in the poem, it stands as a word of complaint meaning "unseemly, improper, not as it should be". In this rendering the equivalents "how unseemly" and "how improper" were therefore chosen. Each couplet lists an injustice, and the redif falls beneath that injustice as an exclamation of astonishment and reproach.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

All the couplets of the ghazal rest on the same pattern: the beauty gives to those who do not deserve it what she withholds from those who do. In the opening couplet this pattern is set up between rose and nightingale. In divan poetry the beloved is likened to the rose and the lover to the nightingale; the rose's going far from the nightingale means the beloved's withholding her beauty from the lover. In the second couplet the same contrast is stated openly: wrath for the faithful lover, kindness for the "ignorant and worthless". Describing the type of beloved in the divan, Gülşen Kaya sums up this attitude as "she shows her wrath to the lover and her kindness to the rival", and gives the fifth couplet as the example of this fickle beloved.

The third couplet works the relation among eye, glance and weapon. According to Kaya, in the divan the eye is imagined as a murderer who attempts the lover's life; the glance, brow and lashes are its weapons. That the eye should strike a dagger after the glance's arrow has pierced the heart in a thousand places makes the two pieces of the same set of weapons complete each other (tenasüp). The phrase "yoḳ yire" in the fourth couplet is a double entendre (tevriye). In divan poetry the beloved's mouth is so small that it is counted as "nothing"; Kaya points to this couplet as the place where Mihrî uses the nonexistence of the mouth so that it carries two meanings through the idiom "yok yere". The lover has been accused of spreading a secret about the beloved's mouth; yet there is not even a mouth to be spread about, and the accusation was made "for nothing".

In the pen-name couplet the sweet (şîrîn) lip and sugar call to one another. Kaya explains this couplet in her entry on the parrot (tûtî): the lover is the parrot that speaks sweetly and eats sugar, the beloved's lip is the sugar, and the rival is the crow. The parrot looking on while the crow eats sugar is a small scene in which Mihrî draws herself as the lover left outside. That the word "şîrîn" is also the name of the heroine of the story of Hüsrev and Şîrîn adds a further association to the couplet.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Mehmet Arslan (ed.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları (Kültür Eserleri Dizisi 576), 2018, p. 79, Gazel 54 (M 63b, Ü 40a). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr

Academic studies

  • Gülşen Kaya, Mihrî Hâtun Divânı'nın Tahlili, master's thesis, Fırat Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Elazığ 2010, p. 129, 154, 175, 193 (entries on the beloved's fickleness, the eye and glance, the mouth, and the parrot). openaccess.firat.edu.tr
  • Sıtkı Nazik, "Benzer Redifli Şiirleri Bağlamında Mihrî Hatun ve Tâcî-zâde Cafer Çelebi'nin Karşılaştırılması", Uluslararası Amasya Âlimleri Sempozyumu Bildiriler Kitabı II, Amasya 2017, p. 137 (table of redifs in Mihrî's divan: "ne kolaysuz", G.54, G.55).

Books

  • Didem Havlioğlu (ed.), Ġazeliyyât-ı Mihrî-i Ḥaḳîre, OTAP electronic edition, ghazal 56 (text published on the türkoloji-iran page, 2007).

Online sources