Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Metre: Mef‘ûlü Mefâ‘îlü Mefâ‘îlü Fa‘ûlün
Çün derd ile âh eylemege başlaruz biz
Her ḳandasa ‘aşḳ ehline yoldaşlaruz biz
Her ġonca-lebüñ yâdına efġânımuz artar
Bülbüller ile gûya ki ḥâldaşlaruz biz
Şem‘-i ruḫuña tâ giceler ṣubḥa dek ey dost
Per yaḳmada pervâneye yoldaşlaruz biz
Eksilmedi aġyâr nidem yâr işiginden
Ol kelb-i la‘îni şu ḳadar ṭaşlaruz biz
Ḫûblarda vefâ bulımaduḳ Mihrî cihânda
Bir baḫtı siyeh ṭâli‘i yoḳ başlaruz biz
In English
1. Once we begin to sigh with our grief, we become companions to the people of love wherever we may be.
2. Our lament grows whenever we remember a beauty with lips like rosebuds; we are, as it were, those who share the same state with the nightingales. (Three manuscripts read "ḳardaş" in place of "ḥâldaş": "we are brothers of the nightingales.")
3. O friend, in the candle of your cheek, from night until morning, we are companions to the moth as it burns its wings.
4. What can I do, the rival never ceases to appear at the beloved's threshold; we stone that accursed dog so much (and still it does not leave).
5. Mihrî, we have found no fidelity among beauties in this world; we are the black-fated ones, the people without fortune (literally "heads," that is, persons).
Literary and Historical Commentary
Structure of the Poem
The fifty-sixth ghazal (gazel) of the divan has five couplets (beyit) and is composed in the aruz (quantitative metre) pattern "Mef‘ûlü Mefâ‘îlü Mefâ‘îlü Fa‘ûlün". The rhyme is the sound "-aş" (baş, yoldaş, ḥâldaş, ṭaş) and the redif (refrain word) is "-laruz biz". The ghazal appears in all four manuscripts (F 47a, M 66b, S 49a, Ü 40a); in Havlioğlu's OTAP text it is ghazal 58. It is not known to whom it was addressed.
The rhyme contains a notable play. The word "başlaruz" serves as rhyme twice, in the opening couplet and in the closing one, but with two different meanings: in the first couplet it comes from the verb "başlamak" and means "we begin", while in the last it is the plural of the noun "baş" and means "we are heads", that is, persons. The repetition of the same word in the rhyme position with different meanings is the device of jinas (punning), and it ties the ghazal together from beginning to end. "Ṭaşlaruz" in the fourth couplet is likewise a verb ("we stone"), though in sound it resembles a noun plural.
Meaning and Figures of Speech
The subject of the ghazal is not the lover's solitude but the companionship he forms with others who burn as he does: the people of love, the nightingale, the moth. In the second couplet the beauty with rosebud lips and the nightingale are two parts of the rose-garden scene; the lover cries out like a nightingale waiting for the bud to open. For this couplet the edition adopts the reading "ḥâldaş" of manuscript F; manuscripts M, S and Ü, and Havlioğlu's text as well, have "ḳardaş". "Ḥâldaş" means one who lives the same state, a partner in grief, and it forms a closer link in sound and meaning with the rhyme word "yoldaş".
In the third couplet the beloved's cheek is the candle and the lover is the moth. Gülşen Kaya cites this couplet in her entry on the moth (pervane) and says that the lover is a companion to the moth in burning his wings at the candle of the beloved's cheek; she places the fourth couplet of ghazal 58 beside it as a continuation of the same image. In the fourth couplet the rival is the "kelb-i la‘în", the accursed dog. Kaya gives this couplet as an example in two places: she explains that the rival is likened to a dog because he will not leave the beloved's door, is held to be ill-omened and is stoned. However much the lover stones him, the rival does not disappear from the threshold.
The closing couplet carries the real voice of the ghazal. Kaya cites it in the section on the lover's ill fortune and says that the lover is so unfortunate that, were all the luckless of the world gathered together, none as black-fated as he would be found. In the line "Bir baḫtı siyeh ṭâli‘i yoḳ başlaruz biz", "baḫt" and "ṭâli‘" are two words from the same field of meaning, while "siyeh" (black) and "yoḳ" (none) reinforce this ill fortune from two directions.
A Poet from Amasya Who Used the Same Redif
In his paper comparing the divans of Mihrî and of Tâcî-zâde Cafer Çelebi, who grew up around Amasya in the same years as Mihrî, through poems with similar redifs, Sıtkı Nazik counts this ghazal among the poems whose rhyme and redif are entirely identical: Mihrî's ghazal 56 and Cafer Çelebi's ghazal 71 both end in "-aşlaruz biz". Nazik sets the two closing couplets side by side. In Mihrî it reads "Ḫûblarda vefâ bulımaduḳ Mihrî cihânda / Bir baḫtı siyeh ṭâli‘i yoḳ başlaruz biz", and in Cafer Çelebi "Olmadı bize devlet-i pâbûs müyesser / Ca‘fer ne ‘aceb devleti yok başlaruz biz". According to Nazik, Mihrî complains of finding no fidelity and of being black-fated and unlucky, while Cafer Çelebi says he could not attain the good fortune of kissing the beloved's foot and voices his astonishment; Nazik observes that the lyrical side of Mihrî's couplet is stronger. The sources do not state which of the two poems was written first or whether one is a nazire (response poem) to the other.
Bibliography
Primary sources
- Mehmet Arslan (ed.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları (Kültür Eserleri Dizisi 576), 2018, p. 80, Ghazal 56 (F 47a, M 66b, S 49a, Ü 40a). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr
Academic studies
- Sıtkı Nazik, "Benzer Redifli Şiirleri Bağlamında Mihrî Hatun ve Tâcî-zâde Cafer Çelebi'nin Karşılaştırılması", Uluslararası Amasya Âlimleri Sempozyumu Bildiriler Kitabı II, Amasya 2017, pp. 140, 146 (table of poems with the same rhyme and redif; comparison of Mihrî G.56 with Cafer Çelebi G.71).
- Gülşen Kaya, Mihrî Hâtun Divânı'nın Tahlili, master's thesis, Fırat Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Elazığ 2010, pp. 194, 200, 246, 277 (entries on the moth, the lover's ill fortune, the rival and the dog). openaccess.firat.edu.tr
Books
- Didem Havlioğlu (ed.), Ġazeliyyât-ı Mihrî-i Ḥaḳîre, OTAP electronic edition, ghazal 58 (text published on the türkoloji-iran page, 2007).
Online sources
