Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilün

Ḥacı Nâbî bizim Allâh'a ḳalupdur işümüz
Ki bu hercâyilere uġradı ḳutsuz başumuz
Ḳadri bilinmeyen ‘âşıḳlar içün ḥaşre degin
Dögelüm başumuzı ṭaşlara aḳsun yaşumuz
Ḫârı elden ḳoyalum cân virelüm gül yolına
Ḳaçan ise gidecekdür ḳoy a gitsün başumuz
Ḳurı lâf ile cihânı bize güldürmeyelüm
Sırr ile işleyelüm her işi bitsün işümüz
Loḳma loḳma ḳo yesünler etimüz her demde
Râżıyuz tek her uyuz it yimesünler aşumuz
Düşde gördüm ki raḳîbi bile redd eyledi yâr
Añla ta‘bîrümüzi ḫayra dönüpdür işümüz
Dilberüñ yolına Mihrî dürişüp cehd idelüm
Ḳalsun ol yolda bizüm dırnaġımuzla dişümüz

In English

1. Hacı Nâbî, our affair has been left to God; for this unlucky head of ours has run into these hercâyis (fickle beauties who show their face to everyone and keep faith with none).

2. For lovers whose worth is not known, let us beat our heads against the stones until the Day of Judgment, and let our tears flow.

3. Let us drop the thorn from our hands and give our lives on the rose's path; one day it will go anyway, so let our head go. (Manuscript M reads "‘Ārı" in place of "Ḫârı": "let us put shame aside.")

4. Let us not make the world laugh at us with empty talk; let us do everything in secret, so that our affair may come to an end.

5. Let them eat our flesh morsel by morsel at every moment, we consent; only let no mangy dog eat our food. (In manuscript Ü "aşumuz" is replaced by "leşimüz"; in that reading the couplet says "let not even our corpse become food for mangy dogs." The mangy dog is the rival.)

6. I saw in a dream that the beloved turned the rival away as well; understand the interpretation of our dream: our affair has turned to good.

7. Mihrî, let us toil and strive on the beloved's road; on that road let our nails and our teeth stay behind (let us labour tooth and nail).

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The fifty-seventh ghazal (gazel) of the divan has seven couplets (beyit) and is composed in the remel metre of the aruz (quantitative metre), in the pattern "Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilün". The rhyme rests on the sound "-ş" (iş, baş, yaş, aş, diş), and the redif (refrain word) is the first person plural possessive suffix "-umuz/-ümüz". Of the rhyme words, "işümüz" is repeated three times and "başumuz" twice. The edition bases the ghazal on manuscripts M (65b) and Ü (40b); in Havlioğlu's OTAP text it is ghazal 59 and is given from a single manuscript. Variants are more numerous in this ghazal than in the other poems; in particular the second line of the fourth couplet ends in manuscript M with "ki çoḳdur nişimüz", and in the fifth couplet the readings "aşumuz" and "leşimüz" change the meaning.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The language of this ghazal is among the examples in Mihrî's divan closest to speech and to folk idiom. Expressions such as "işimiz Allah'a kaldı" (our affair is left to God), "başımızı taşlara vuralım" (let us beat our heads against the stones), "varsın başımız gitsin" (let our head go), "kuru laf" (empty talk), "lokma lokma" (morsel by morsel), "uyuz it" (mangy dog) and "tırnağımızla dişimizle" (tooth and nail) fill the couplets. In the summary of her thesis, Gülşen Kaya says that Mihrî drew the attention of the tezkire (biographical anthology of poets) writers with her "sincere and plain language"; this ghazal is a marked example of that plainness.

The word "hercâyi" in the opening couplet means one who settles everywhere and belongs to no one, and in the divan it is used for faithless beauties. According to Kaya, the beloveds in the divan are faithless and hercâyi, and show favour to everyone except the lover. The second and third couplets express the lover's submission in the face of this faithlessness: heads will be beaten against stones, and lives will be given on the rose's path. In the third couplet "ḫâr" (thorn) and "gül" (rose) are a well-known pair of divan poetry; dropping the thorn and giving one's life on the rose's path means accepting hardship in order to turn toward the beloved.

The fourth couplet lays down a rule in the middle of the ghazal: the business of love is not conducted with empty talk and show but must be done in secrecy. In the fifth couplet the lover consents to every torment, and cannot bear only that the rival, the "mangy dog", should share in his portion. In the sixth couplet a relation between dream and interpretation (ta‘bîr) is set up; the lover has seen in his dream that the beloved rejected the rival, and takes this as a good omen. In the closing couplet "dırnaġ" (nail) and "diş" (tooth) come together; this expression, close to the idiom "dişini tırnağına takmak" (to work with all one's might) still in use today, conveys the greatness of the effort to be spent on the beloved's road. The closeness in sound that "diş" forms in the rhyme with "iş" is also a kind of return to the beginning of the ghazal.

Who Is Hacı Nâbî

"Ḥacı Nâbî", addressed in the first line of the ghazal, does not appear elsewhere in the divan. Gülşen Kaya, in the section where she examines the persons named in the divan, cites this couplet and says only that "in a ghazal with a matla‘ (opening couplet), complaints about beauties are made to someone called Hacı Nâbî"; she gives no information about the person's identity. The edition likewise offers no explanation for this name. From the tone of address it can be understood that Hacı Nâbî was someone from Mihrî's circle, close enough to be confided in, but who he was is not known. This name has no connection with Nâbî, the great divan poet of the seventeenth century; Mihrî lived long before him, in the reign of Bayezid II.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Mehmet Arslan (ed.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları (Kültür Eserleri Dizisi 576), 2018, pp. 80-81, Ghazal 57 (M 65b, Ü 40b). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr

Academic studies

  • Gülşen Kaya, Mihrî Hâtun Divânı'nın Tahlili, master's thesis, Fırat Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Elazığ 2010, pp. II (summary), 69, 137 (persons named in the divan; entry on the hercâyi beloved). openaccess.firat.edu.tr

Books

  • Didem Havlioğlu (ed.), Ġazeliyyât-ı Mihrî-i Ḥaḳîre, OTAP electronic edition, ghazal 59 (text published on the türkoloji-iran page, 2007).
  • İsmail E. Erünsal, "Mihrî Hatun", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 30, Ankara 2020, pp. 37-38. islamansiklopedisi.org.tr
  • "Iydiyye", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi (entry concerning the seventeenth-century poet Nâbî). islamansiklopedisi.org.tr

Online sources