Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Neyleyem bî-çâre göñlüm bir dem olmaz yârsuz
Epsem olmaz nitekim cehd eylerem bu ‘ârsuz
Ben dilümde nâmını vird itdüm ammâ dilberüm
Bir dem añmaz adum olmaz bir nefes aġyârsuz
Vaṣlını iḳrâr idüp ṣaldı beni sevdâlara
Döndi inkâr eyledi bu dîni yoḳ iḳrârsuz
Ey ṭabîb-i cân meded bîmâruñam öldüm didüm
Didi ḫûdur ‘âşıḳ öldürmek baña tîmârsuz
Görmedüm bir ḫûb kim yanında olmaya raḳîb
Bu cihân bâġında hiç gül olmaz imiş ḫârsuz
Ḫûblaruñ mihrini Mihrî ölürüz terk itmezüz
Kim ne dir ise disün biz olamazuz yârsuz

In English

1. What can I do, my helpless heart cannot be without its beloved for a moment; however much I strive, this shameless (heart) will not be silent.

2. I have repeated her name on my tongue constantly like a prayer; but my darling does not mention my name for a single moment, and does not stay apart from the rivals for even a breath. (Vird: a prayer recited regularly each day, a dhikr.)

3. After promising that I would reach her, she cast me into passions; then she turned back and denied her word. This one without a word has neither religion nor faith. (Affirmation and denial are spoken in the language of religion and faith: turning back from the affirmation that is a condition of faith counts as unbelief.)

4. "O physician of the soul, hurry, I am your patient, I am dying," I said; "Killing the lover without treating him is my habit," she said.

5. I have not seen a single beauty who has no rival beside her; it seems that in this garden of the world there is never a rose without a thorn.

6. Mihrî, we will die but we will not give up the love of beauties; whatever anyone may say, we cannot be without a beloved. ("Mihr" means love; the poet places her pen name right beside this word.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The sixty-third ghazal (gazel) of the divan has six couplets (beyit) and is composed in the remel metre of the aruz (quantitative metre), in the pattern "Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilün". The rhyme is the sound "-âr" (yâr, ‘âr, aġyâr, iḳrâr, tîmâr, ḫâr), and the redif (refrain word) is the suffix "-suz," which expresses lack. The rhyme "yârsuz" in the opening couplet is repeated exactly in the closing couplet; the ghazal thus opens and closes with the same word. The poem is found in only two manuscripts (M 65b, Ü 41b); it is absent from manuscripts F and S. There is no information about to whom it was addressed.

The redif "-suz" carries the whole thought of the ghazal. Each couplet speaks of a lack: a heart that cannot be without the beloved, a heart without shame, a beloved who does not spend a moment without rivals, a beloved who does not keep her word, a physician who kills her patient without treatment, a rose that is never without thorns. That so small a suffix directs the meaning of the poem to this degree shows well the function of the redif in divan poetry.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal is built on the beloved's faithlessness and the lover's refusal, in spite of it, to give up his love. In the opening couplet the heart is called both "bî-çâre" (helpless) and "‘ârsuz" (shameless). The lover speaks as though blaming his own heart, because the heart, despite everything, does not cease to want the beloved and to say so. The word "epsem" means mute, voiceless; that the heart will not be silent expresses that love cannot be concealed.

In the second couplet the attitudes of the lover and the beloved are set against each other. The lover has made the beloved's name his "vird"; this word describes the prayer that dervishes repeat a set number of times each day, and it gives the lover's devotion a religious depth. The beloved, however, never mentions the lover's name even once and spends her time with the rivals. The closeness in sound between the words "dil" (heart, tongue) and "dilber" (darling) also builds the harmony of the couplet.

The third couplet is among the examples Gülşen Kaya gives on the beloved's cruelty and torment (cevr ü cefa). In this section Kaya says that the beloved first gives hope of union and then will not look at the lover's face, does not keep her word, and is without affirmation and without fidelity. In the couplet the words affirmation (ikrar), denial (inkâr) and religion (din) come together to form a tenasüp (congruence of images); between ikrar and inkâr there is tezat (antithesis). The transfer of religious terms to the relation of love shows the beloved who goes back on her word as one who has turned from faith.

The fourth couplet is a short conversation. The lover addresses the beloved as "physician of the soul" and asks for a cure for his grief. The beloved's reply carries a bitter witticism: this physician has made it her habit to kill her patient without treating him. There is a tenasüp among the words ṭabîb (physician), bîmâr (patient) and tîmâr (care, treatment); the likeness in sound between bîmâr and tîmâr gives the couplet a further harmony.

The fifth couplet uses the rose and thorn conceit. According to Kaya, the thorn beside the beloved, who is the rose, is the rival; just as in the garden of the world a rose is never without thorns, beside every beauty there is someone who is a thorn. The couplet is built like a proverb: the saying "there is no rose without a thorn" makes the rival's presence accepted as a law of nature. Since the second line confirms the claim of the first with a general example, this couplet can be counted an example of irsâl-i mesel (the use of a proverb).

In the closing couplet the poet places her pen name "Mihrî" right after the word "mihr," meaning love. Kaya gives this couplet among those in which Mihrî Hatun presents herself as a lover: even if the poet should die, she will not give up the love of beauties and will not remain without a beloved. The words "kim ne dir ise disün" (let whoever will say what they will) are a kind of declaration of resolve at the end of the ghazal. That these words come from the mouth of a woman poet can also be read as a voice saying she pays no heed to the comments of those around her; however, the couplet stays within the general lover's stance of divan poetry and is not linked to any particular event in the poet's life.

Bibliography

  • Mehmet Arslan (ed.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları (Kültür Eserleri Dizisi 576), 2018, p. 84, Ghazal 63 (M 65b, Ü 41b). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr
  • Gülşen Kaya, Mihrî Hâtun Divânı'nın Tahlili, master's thesis, Fırat Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Elazığ 2010, pp. 130, 135, 192. openaccess.firat.edu.tr