Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mef‘ûlü Fâ‘ilâtü Mefâ‘îlü Fâ‘ilün

‘Arż itdi gülşene görüñ ol gül-‘iẕâr ḫaṭ
Naḳş itdi gül varaḳlarına yazdı yâr ḫaṭ
Ṣandum seḥâba girdi veyâḫud ṭutuldı gün
Olmış güneş yüzinde meger âşikâr ḫaṭ
Yazmış cemâli levḥine reyḥân ḫaṭṭ-ı riḳâ‘
Devr-i ḳamerde gör nice bulmış ḳarâr ḫaṭ
İster ki la‘li çeşmesile tâze ter ola
Āb-ı kenâra geldügi bu sebze-zâr ḫaṭ
Bildi ḫadinde yazdı ḫaṭın ḳıl ḳalemle yâr
Merġûb olur kenâra yazılsa ġubâr ḫaṭ
Şimden girü vefâ ḫaṭını ḳıl ḳalemle yaz
Cân levḥasında ṣaḳlayalum yâdigâr ḫaṭ
Geldi ‘iẕârı üstine leşker çeküp bugün
‘Āşıḳlarını ya‘ni k'ide târ u mâr ḫaṭ
Ṣanma cemâli âyinesinden gözüm ıram
Bir toz getürmek ile sen ey nâ-bekâr ḫaṭ
Geldiyse ḫaṭṭı gül yüzine Mihrî ġam degül
Ter-ġonca iken eylemişüz iḫtiyâr ḫaṭ

In English

1. Behold, that rose-cheeked beloved has displayed her down (ḫaṭ) to the rose garden; she has worked a design into the rose petals and written a line upon them. (Ḫaṭ means both writing and the fine down that first appears on the face; the rose petal is also the beloved's cheek.)

2. I thought the sun had gone behind a cloud or been eclipsed; in fact the down had appeared on her sunlike face.

3. Basil has written a line of rikâ‘ script on the tablet of her beauty; see how firmly it has settled in the cycle of the moon (on her moon-round face). (Reyhânî and rikâ‘ are kinds of script; basil is also a green, sweet-smelling plant, and the colour of the new down is likened to it. The Ü manuscript reads "ḫaṭṭı.")

4. This greenery, the down, has come to the water's edge and wants to be fresh and moist with the spring of her ruby lip. (The down that reaches the edge of the lip is likened to the grass growing on the bank of a fountain.)

5. The beloved knew this and wrote her script on her cheek with a hair-fine pen; a ġubâr script written in the margin is welcome. (Ġubâr means both dust and a script written in very small letters; the margin is both the edge of the page and the edge of the face.)

6. From now on write the script of fidelity as well with the fine pen; let us keep it as a memento on the tablet of the soul.

7. The down has come today and drawn up its army upon her cheek; that is, to scatter her lovers in disarray. (The M manuscript reads "ide" in place of "k'ide.")

8. Do not think, O worthless down, that by bringing a little dust you will turn my eye away from the mirror of her beauty. (The face is likened to a mirror and the down to the dust settled on it.)

9. Mihrî, if down has come to her rose face there is no need to grieve; we chose her while she was still a fresh bud. (The couplet can be read in two ways: the words "iḫtiyâr ḫaṭ" may be understood as "we chose the beloved while she was a bud," or as "we accepted and embraced her down too while she was still a bud.")

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The sixty-ninth ghazal (gazel) of the divan consists of nine couplets (beyit) and is written in the muzâri‘ foot of aruz (quantitative metre) in the pattern "Mef‘ûlü Fâ‘ilâtü Mefâ‘îlü Fâ‘ilün." The rhyme is the sound "-âr" (‘iẕâr, yâr, âşikâr, ḳarâr, zâr, ġubâr, yâdigâr, mâr, bekâr, iḫtiyâr), and the redif (refrain word) is "ḫaṭ." It stands in the section Ḥarfü'ṭ-Ṭâ, which holds the poems of the divan ending in the letter "ṭ," and is found in all four manuscripts (F 48b, M 68b, S 50b, Ü 43a). The differences between the manuscripts are limited to a few minor variant readings. Nothing is known about whom it was written for. In the table of Sıtkı Nazik's study comparing the refrains of Mihrî Hatun and Tâcîzâde Cafer Çelebi, the refrain "hat" appears only in Mihrî's divan.

The ghazal is devoted from beginning to end to a single subject, the down newly appearing on the beloved's face. In divan poetry "ḫaṭ" or "ḫaṭṭ" is the fine down that appears on the cheek and at the edge of the lip. Gülşen Kaya notes that hat, the down on the face, is mostly used with a double meaning (tevriye) because it is written and read in the same way as hat, the art of calligraphy; that, in parallel with the comparison of the face to a page, the down is the writing on that page; and she cites the opening couplet of this ghazal as an example. Because the refrain can be drawn in every couplet toward both meanings, down and writing, the ghazal becomes a chain of double entendres.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

In the opening couplet the beloved displays the down on her own cheek to the rose garden; the rose petals are the cheek itself, and the down is a design, a piece of writing, laid upon those petals. The repetition between "gül-‘iẕâr" (rose-cheeked) and "gül varaḳları" (rose petals) brings face and garden together. That the word "varak" means both leaf and sheet of paper strengthens the comparison with writing.

In the second couplet the face is the sun and the down is the cloud that covers it. Kaya says that the face, being bright and radiant, is likened to the sun and the moon, that the down is treated as a cloud that hides this radiant moon or sun, and she cites this couplet in two different sections. The lover first supposes that the sun has gone behind a cloud or been eclipsed, and then realizes that it is down appearing on the face. This small scene of surprise, from supposing to understanding, gives the couplet its liveliness.

The third couplet plays with the names of scripts. Kaya says that levh (tablet) is used together with beauty in only one couplet of the divan, which states that the down, being basil, has written ḫaṭṭ-ı riḳâ‘ on the beloved's face. The same thesis says that the types of hat called reyhânî, gubârî and rikâ‘ are also treated in connection with the down and used with double meaning. Basil recalls both a type of script and a green, sweet-smelling plant, and the greenish colour of the down is related to this second meaning. In the phrase "devr-i ḳamer" the moon is the beloved's round face.

In the fourth couplet the face becomes a garden, the down a meadow (sebze-zâr), and the lip the fountain at the edge of that meadow. Kaya says that with this couplet a garden with flowing fountains is imagined, that an allusion to the water of life and Khidr is made through the notion that the fountain is the water of life and the garden is the darkness (zulumat), and that the lip is described as the water of immortality and the down as the darkness that hides this water.

The fifth and sixth couplets continue the comparison with writing. "Ḳıl ḳalem" means a fine brush or fine-nibbed pen, and it also recalls the hairs of the down themselves. The words "kenâr" and "ġubâr" in the fifth couplet each carry two meanings: the margin is both the margin of a page and the edge of the face, and ġubâr is both dust and the gubârî script written in tiny letters. In the sixth couplet the lover asks the beloved for a "vefâ ḫaṭı," a document of fidelity. Kaya says that the soul is imagined as the page and tablet on which the beloved's script of beauty and fidelity is written, and she cites this couplet as an example.

In the seventh couplet the down turns into an army. Kaya says that the down is called an "army" (leşker) because it surrounds and covers the face, that it is said that the soldiers of the down cover the face in order to scatter the lovers, and that the same image is exemplified with this couplet in the thesis's section on soldiers and armies. The phrase "târ u mâr" (in disarray) also supplies the rhyme word "mâr."

In the eighth couplet the face is a mirror and the down is dust falling on the mirror. Kaya says that even when the mirror of beauty is covered with dust, the lover does not take her eyes off it, because just as a person sees himself in a mirror, the lover finds herself only in the beloved. In this couplet the lover addresses the down directly and scolds it as "nâ-bekâr" (worthless, good for nothing).

The closing couplet ties together the main idea of the ghazal. Kaya says that in the divan beauty is regarded as a transient capital that is bound to slip away, and that when the mirror of the face gradually becomes dusty, this dust and rust is the down covering the beloved's face. Mihrî, however, does not count this as a loss: she chose her beloved when she was a fresh bud, and the coming of down to her face does not change this love. The encounter of "ter-ġonca" (fresh bud) and "gül yüz" (rose face) suggests that love is not tied to a fleeting moment of beauty.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Mehmet Arslan (ed.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: Republic of Türkiye Ministry of Culture and Tourism Publications (Cultural Works Series 576), 2018, pp. 87-88, Ghazal 69 (F 48b, M 68b, S 50b, Ü 43a).

Academic studies

  • Gülşen Kaya, Mihrî Hâtun Divânı'nın Tahlili, master's thesis, Fırat University Institute of Social Sciences, Elazığ 2010, pp. 89, 125-126, 165, 171-173, 220, 257. 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, pp. 133-148 (refrain table, p. 137).

Online sources