Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Bir büt-i gül-çihre ile ‘ârif ol ‘azm eyle bâġ
Furṣatı fevt itme seyrân it ki tîz geçer bu çaġ
Baġruñuñ ḳanı ile pür eyle çeşmüñ sâġarın
Dil kebâbından ḥabîbe mâ-ḥażar eyle yaraġ
Ġonca la‘li yâdına nûş eylesün gül-gûn mey
Lâle ḫaddi şevḳine ser-mest olup ṣunsun ayaġ
Vaḳt-i nev-rûz irdi bu es̱nâda ġâyet cehl ola
Bir nefes olmaḳ ḥabîbüñ ḫâk-i pâyından ıraġ
Yâ sevindür ‘îd-i vaṣluñla ya öldür Mihrî'yi
Ḳıl teraḥḥum vaḳtidür kim süñüge irdi bıçaġ

In English

1. O man of understanding (ârif), set out for the garden with a rose-faced idol of beauty; do not let the opportunity slip, go strolling, for this age passes quickly.

2. Fill the goblet of your eye with the blood of your liver; for the beloved prepare whatever there is at hand from the kebab of the heart. (The eye's goblet is imagined as filled with bloody tears, and the heart as a kebab roasted in the fire of love.)

3. Let rose-coloured wine be drunk in memory of her bud-like ruby lip; let the cup be offered, drunk with longing for her tulip-like cheek.

4. The time of Nevruz has come; at such a time it would be the height of folly to stay away from the dust of the beloved's feet even for a moment. (The F, M and S manuscripts read "sehl" in place of "cehl"; with this reading the line can be understood as "is it something to be made light of, to stay away for a moment?")

5. Either gladden Mihrî with the festival of your union or kill her; have mercy, the time has come, the knife has reached the bone.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The seventy-second ghazal (gazel) of the divan stands in the section Ḥarfü'l-Ġayn and consists of five couplets (beyit). It is written in the remel foot of aruz (quantitative metre) in the pattern "Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilün," one of the patterns most used in divan poetry. The ghazal has no redif (refrain word); the rhyme is built on the sound "-aġ" (bâġ, çaġ, yaraġ, ayaġ, ıraġ, bıçaġ). That most of the rhyme words are Turkish (çağ, yarak, ayak, ırak, bıçak) gives the ghazal a plain and lively expression. The poem is found in all four manuscripts (F 49b, M 69b, S 51b, Ü 43b). Nothing is known about whom it was written for.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The first four couplets are an invitation to go out to the garden in the season of spring and enjoy oneself with the beloved. This is an example of the "seize the opportunity" idea often seen in divan poetry: the season and life pass quickly, so time must not be wasted. Gülşen Kaya notes that in several couplets of the divan it is expressed that the man of understanding (ârif) must not miss the opportunity and must go out for a stroll with the beloved before time passes; the opening couplet of this ghazal is among the clearest of those couplets. The word "ârif" here describes less a mystical depth than a person who knows how to enjoy life and understands the situation.

In the second couplet a gathering is set up, but both the drink and the food of this gathering come from the lover's own body. The goblet of the eye is to be filled with the blood of the liver, that is, with bloody tears, and the kebab of the heart is to be served to the beloved. Kaya says that the food most often mentioned in the divan is the kebab, that the lover's heart and liver roasted in the fire of love are likened to a kebab, and she cites this couplet as an example. The relation among the words sâġar (goblet), kebab and "mâ-ḥażar" (whatever is at hand, whatever is found on the table) forms a congruence of images (tenasüp). In the third couplet the gathering becomes lovelier: the beloved's lip is likened to a bud and her cheek to a tulip; rose-coloured wine, bud, tulip and cup (ayaġ) come together as parts of a spring table.

The fourth couplet fixes the time of the invitation: Nevruz, the beginning of spring, has come. At such a time to stay away from the dust of the beloved's feet is folly. The conceit of "ḫâk-i pây" (dust of the feet) expresses that the lover has no worth even as much as the dust where the beloved's foot treads, but counts it the greatest good fortune to be near that dust. Between the manuscripts there is a meaningful difference in this couplet: in the Ü manuscript, on which Arslan bases his text, it is "cehl" (folly), while in the other three manuscripts it is "sehl" (easy, trivial).

In the closing couplet the tone changes. The joy of spring gives way to the last word of a lover who has come to the end of her patience. A link is made between the festival (‘îd) and Nevruz: the lover asks the beloved for union as the joy of a festival, and if it is not granted she prefers death. The opposition between "sevindür" (gladden) and "öldür" (kill) is the figure of antithesis (tezat). The phrase at the end of the line, "süñüge irdi bıçaġ," is an idiom built with the word "süñük," which in Old Turkish means bone, and corresponds to the saying "the knife has reached the bone," still used today. The closing couplet, ending in an idiom, shuts the ornate picture of the gathering with a phrase taken from everyday speech; it is one of the places where the use of idiom and proverb is seen in Mihrî's poems.

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. 89-90, Ghazal 72 (F 49b, M 69b, S 51b, Ü 43b).
  • Sabiha Gemici, Mihrî Hatun Divanı: Karşılaştırmalı Metin, Cümle Yapısı ve Cümle Türleri, doctoral dissertation, Uludağ University, Balıkesir 1990, pp. 506-507 (ghazal 74 in Gemici).

Academic studies

  • Gülşen Kaya, Mihrî Hâtun Divânı'nın Tahlili, master's thesis, Fırat University Institute of Social Sciences, Elazığ 2010, pp. 54, 290. openaccess.firat.edu.tr

Books

  • Didem Havlioğlu (ed.), Ġazeliyyât-ı Mihrî-i Ḥaḳîre, OTAP electronic edition, ghazal 74 (text published on the türkoloji-iran page, 2007).

Online sources