Mihrî Hatun, Ghazal 71: Dile cevrin habîb

Mihrî Hatun's six-couplet ghazal without a refrain: a plain complaint about the beloved's returning cruelty, a blood-drinking glance, a saving eye and union that depends on fortune.

Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mefâ‘îlün Mefâ‘îlün Fa‘ûlün

Dile cevrin ḥabîb itmişdi ḳâṭi‘
Dirîġâ yine beñzer itdi râci‘

İçer ṣu yirine ḳanumı ġamzeñ
‘Aceb budur ki olmaz daḫi ḳâni‘

Beni bir tîrle öldürmişdi ġamzeñ
Arada çeşmüñ olmasaydı mâni‘

Düşelden ‘aşḳuñuñ sevdâsına âh
Neler oldı benüm başuma vâḳi‘

Ṭapuñdan ummaz idüm dost âḫir
Ḳatuñda ola idi külli żâyì‘

İrilmez yâre cehd ile i Mihrî
Keşîde olmayıcaḳ ẕerre ṭâli‘

In English

1. The beloved had cut off her cruelty to the heart; alas, by the look of it she has brought it back again.

2. Your glance (ġamze) drinks my blood in place of water; the wonder is that it still is not satisfied and does not have enough.

3. Your glance had killed me with a single arrow, had your eye not come between us as a barrier.

4. Ah, since I fell into the passion of your love, what has not befallen my head.

5. O friend, I did not expect this from your door (your presence): that in the end everything of mine would be wholly wasted at your side. (The couplet can be read in two ways: the second line may also be understood as a wish, "if only everything of mine might be lost at your side." The F manuscript reads "Ḳapuñda" in place of "Ḳatuñda"; the meaning does not change.)

6. O Mihrî, the beloved is not reached by effort until the star of fortune rises, if only by an atom. (Havlioğlu's text reads "Kişide olmıyacaḳ zerre ṭâli‘"; with this reading the line means "unless a person has an atom of fortune.")

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The seventy-first ghazal (gazel) of the divan is a poem of six couplets (beyit) in the section Ḥarfü'l-‘Ayn. It is written in "Mefâ‘îlün Mefâ‘îlün Fa‘ûlün," one of the short patterns of the hezec foot of aruz (quantitative metre); this pattern is often used in mesnevis and in short ghazals of plain expression. The ghazal has no redif (refrain word). The rhyme is built with words of Arabic origin in the fâ‘il pattern, all ending in the letter ‘ayn: ḳâṭi‘ (cutting), râci‘ (returning), ḳâni‘ (content), mâni‘ (obstructing), vâḳi‘ (occurring), żâyi‘ (lost) and ṭâli‘ (fortune). This is also the reason the ghazal is placed in the section Ḥarfü'l-‘Ayn. The poem is found in all four manuscripts (F 49a, M 69b, S 51a, Ü 43b). The word "żâyì‘" in the fifth couplet is printed in the edition with a special character and should probably be read "żâyi‘." Nothing is known about whom it was written for.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal opens with disappointment at the beloved's return to a cruelty she had given up for a moment. There is an opposition between "ḳâṭi‘" and "râci‘": one describes cutting off, the other coming back. In her thesis on the sentence structure of the divan, Sabiha Gemici counts this couplet among the examples in which words are not used in their proper place, and writes that it is clear the poet meant "kat‘" (cutting) in place of "ḳâṭi‘" and "rücû‘" (return) in place of "râci‘." Gemici also cites the same couplet among the examples in which, in a compound verb, the auxiliary verb comes before the noun under the pressure of metre and rhyme. This observation shows that tying the rhyme to the Arabic fâ‘il pattern from time to time pushes the poet outside customary expression.

The second and third couplets make the beloved's glances speak like two separate persons. The glance (gamze) is a tyrant who drinks blood; it drinks the lover's blood in place of water and still is not sated. The relation among the words "ṣu" (water), "ḳan" (blood) and "içmek" (to drink) forms a congruence of images (tenasüp); and "ḳâni‘" also brings to mind, by sound, the word "ḳan" in the couplet and the Turkish verb "kanmak" (to be sated). In the third couplet the glance is about to kill the lover with an arrow, and it is the eye that saves her. Gülşen Kaya gives this couplet as an example of the divan's cases in which, although the eye is generally mentioned as an enemy that plunders lives, sometimes the killer is the glance and the one who saves the lover is the eye. That eye and glance are separated and one stands as a barrier to the other is a fine example of how, in divan poetry, each part of the beloved's face is thought of as a person acting by its own will.

The fourth couplet is a plain lament cut short by the exclamation "âh"; what falling into the passion of love has brought on the lover's head is not counted but left to the reader's guess. The fifth couplet is the most obscure place in the ghazal in terms of meaning. The word "ṭapu" carries in Old Turkish the meanings of presence, door and service together; the lover says she did not expect that, having laboured at this door, everything of hers would in the end be wasted. In the closing couplet the idea of fortune comes to the fore: reaching the beloved is not done by effort but depends on the rising of the star of fortune. Between "ẕerre" (atom) and "ṭâli‘" (rising star, fortune) one senses a contrast set up between a tiny particle and a star in the sky. The difference in reading between manuscripts and editions affects the meaning in this couplet: Arslan's reading "keşîde olmayıcaḳ" puts forward the drawing up and rising of fortune, while Havlioğlu's reading "kişide olmıyacaḳ" puts forward a person's not having fortune.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Mehmet Arslan (ed.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: Republic of Türkiye Ministry of Culture and Tourism Publications (Cultural Works Series 576), 2018, p. 89, Ghazal 71 (F 49a, M 69b, S 51a, Ü 43b).
Sabiha Gemici, Mihrî Hatun Divanı: Karşılaştırmalı Metin, Cümle Yapısı ve Cümle Türleri, doctoral dissertation, Uludağ University, Balıkesir 1990, pp. 101, 335, 505-506 (ghazal 73 in Gemici).

Academic studies

Gülşen Kaya, Mihrî Hâtun Divânı'nın Tahlili, master's thesis, Fırat University Institute of Social Sciences, Elazığ 2010, p. 155. openaccess.firat.edu.tr

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