Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fe‘ilâtün Mefâ‘ilün Fe‘ilün

Dost be-ḥaḳḳ-ı sûre-i iḫlâṣ
Beni öldür belâdan eyle ḫalâṣ
Yeter atsun müjeñ tîrini ḳaşuñ
Oḳ nişânına irdi yayuñı yaṣ
Dil-i dîvânemüzi zülfüñde
Dostum bir ḳıl ile baġla ya aṣ
Baḥr-ı şi‘r içre Mihrî bir dürdür
Ki anı görmemiş ola ġavvâṣ
Ma‘ni dükkân'içinde ṣarrâf ol
Sende bulsun ḳamusı gevher-i ḫâṣ
Virme nâdân eline kim ne bilür
Altunuñ ḳıymetini ehl-i raṣâṣ

In English

1. Friend, for the sake of the Sura of Sincerity (Ikhlas), kill me and deliver me from this affliction. (The Sura al-Ikhlas is the short sura of the Quran that expounds the oneness of God; the word "iḫlâṣ" also means sincerity, pure devotion.)

2. It is enough that your brow (your bow) has shot the arrow of your lashes; the arrow has found its target, now lower your bow. (The brow is likened to a bow and the lashes to an arrow; the target is the lover's heart. The word "yaṣ" is read here as lowering, laying down the bow. Manuscript F reads "urdı" in place of "irdi": "the arrow struck the target.")

3. My friend, bind our mad heart with a hair of your tress, or hang it.

4. In the sea of poetry, Mihrî is a pearl that no diver has seen.

5. Be a goldsmith-assessor in the shop of meaning; let everyone find the pure jewel in you. (Sarraf: one who weighs precious stones and coin and knows their value. The poet praises being a master who knows value in the work of words and meaning; the one addressed may be the poet herself.)

6. Do not give it into the hands of the ignorant; what does one who works in lead know of the worth of gold? (Raṣâṣ: lead, tin. Ehl-i raṣâṣ: a tinsmith, one who works base metal. Gold here is the poetry itself.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The sixty-seventh ghazal (gazel) of the divan has six couplets (beyit) and is composed in the hafif metre of the aruz (quantitative metre), in the pattern "Fe‘ilâtün Mefâ‘ilün Fe‘ilün". This short pattern shortens the lines noticeably compared with most of the ghazals of the divan and gives the poem a quick manner of speech. The ghazal has no redif (refrain word); the rhyme is built on the sound "-âṣ" (iḫlâṣ, ḫalâṣ, yaṣ, aṣ, ġavvâṣ, ḫâṣ, raṣâṣ). Most of the rhyme words are Arabic; among them two short Turkish imperatives are also included, "yaṣ" (lower the bow) and "aṣ" (hang). The ghazal is in the section Ḥarfü'ṣ-Ṣâd, where the poems ending in the letter "ṣ" are collected in the divan, and is found in all four manuscripts (F 47b, M 68a, S 50a, Ü 42b). There is no information about to whom it was addressed.

In the edition the couplet bearing the pen name (mahlas) stands fourth, and the ghazal continues with two more couplets. According to Arslan's footnotes, in manuscripts F and S this couplet is the sixth, that is, the last couplet; the fifth and sixth couplets move in these manuscripts to the fourth and fifth places. The order in F and S accords with the habit of placing the pen name in the last couplet. In the order of the edition, the ghazal closes with a three-couplet section (4-6) in which the poet praises her own poetry.

The ghazal divides into two parts. The first three couplets are directed to the beloved and are built on the lover's death, deliverance and binding. The last three are a fahriye (boast poem) in which the poet praises her own poetry. Although the transition between the two parts is abrupt, the rhyme sound "-âṣ" and the thought of "value" tie them together: the lover asks the beloved for deliverance, the poet asks that the value of her words be recognized.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet begins with the devices of iktibas (quotation) and telmih (allusion). Gülşen Kaya says that verses of the Quran are sometimes given in the divan directly by naming the sura, and sometimes by way of quotation, and she shows this couplet among the examples in which the name of a sura appears. The lover asks the beloved to kill him for the sake of the Sura al-Ikhlas, which expounds the oneness of God; death here is the way of deliverance from the affliction of love. İhlâs and ḫalâṣ are words of the same root, and this closeness in sound joins the two lines of the couplet. That the word "İhlâs" means both the name of the sura and sincerity adds a tevriye (double entendre) to the couplet: the lover swears both by a holy sura and in the name of the sincerity of his own devotion.

The second couplet rests on the conceit of brow and lashes. The brow is likened to a bow and the lashes to an arrow, and the lover's heart is the target of these arrows. Since the arrow has reached its target, it is asked that the bow now be loosened: the lover has been wounded enough. There is a tenasüp (congruence of images) among the words arrow, bow, target and shoot.

In the third couplet the mad heart awaits being bound or hanged on the beloved's tress. A single strand of hair ("bir ḳıl") is enough to bind the mad heart; the thinking of the hair here as both a chain and a gallows shows the many-sided use of the tress in divan poetry. The words "bind or hang," together with the wish "kill me" of the preceding couplet, continue the lover's seeking deliverance in death.

The fahriye begins with the fourth couplet. Kaya notes that the diver in the divan is the lover who dives into the sea of love or a person with a taste for poetry, and that Mihrî, in praising her poetry, describes herself as a pearl in the sea of poetry, and she gives this couplet as an example. The words sea, pearl and diver build a tenasüp. A pearl that no diver has seen means a poem without equal, one whose like has not been brought up before. The equating of the pen name with the pearl shows plainly that the praise is made in the poet's own name.

The fifth couplet continues the same praise in the language of the market. Kaya notes that the goldsmith-assessor (sarraf) is mentioned in one couplet of the divan, and that the poet, in praising her poetry, speaks of the need to be a shop of meaning that holds the pure jewel of poetry. There is a tenasüp among the words shop, sarraf and jewel. The relation set up between "ma‘ni" (meaning) and jewel carries the thought that good poetry must be weighed and measured like a precious stone.

The last couplet closes the fahriye with a warning. Kaya says that raṣâṣ is used in the sense of tinsmith, one who does not know value, and that the poet expresses that her poetry is worth gold and that it is impossible for the ehl-i raṣâṣ to understand this value. In the section of the thesis on precious stones, gold too is seen to be exemplified by this couplet. The antithesis between gold and lead makes concrete the difference between those who know the value of poetry and those who do not. Since the couplet is built like a proverb, it has a manner of speech close to the device of irsâl-i mesel (the use of a proverb).

Bibliography

  • Mehmet Arslan (ed.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları (Kültür Eserleri Dizisi 576), 2018, pp. 86-87, Ghazal 67 (F 47b, M 68a, S 50a, Ü 42b). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr
  • Gülşen Kaya, Mihrî Hâtun Divânı'nın Tahlili, master's thesis, Fırat Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Elazığ 2010, pp. 13, 91-92, 290. openaccess.firat.edu.tr