Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Dostum dil murġına ḳurmuş ḳara zülfeynüñ aġ
Göz ḳızardup düşdüm illâ âh kim müşkil duzâġ
Nitekim cehd eylerem meyl itmeyem meh-rûlara
Çıḳarur yoldan beni bir zülfi ḳara yüzi aġ
Ol ḳadar yaḳdum şehâ ‘aşḳuñ fetîlin sînede
Ḳurıdı cismümde ḳanum eridi yürekde yaġ
Yaḳmasa ġam ẓulmetinde ḳalmış idüm tâ ebed
Ruḫları nârı ḫayâli ḫâne-i dilde çerâġ
Düşdi Mihrî bir perînüñ zülfinüñ çengâline
Key hünerdür bu belâdan ḳurtarursa cânı ṣaġ

In English

1. My friend, your two black locks have set a net (aġ) for the bird of my heart; blinded with rage I fell into it, but ah, what a hard snare it is.

2. However much I strive not to incline toward moon-faced beauties, one with black hair and a white (aġ) face leads me astray.

3. O my sultan, I lit the wick of your love in my breast so long that my blood dried up in my body and the fat of my heart melted. (The lover's body is likened to a lamp: love is the wick, and blood and the fat of the heart are its fuel.)

4. Had the image of your fire-like cheeks not lit a lamp in the house of my heart, I would have remained in the darkness of grief for ever.

5. Mihrî has fallen into the hook of a fairy's lock of hair; what a great feat it will be if she gets her life safe out of this calamity.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The seventy-third ghazal (gazel) of the divan, like the previous one, stands in the section Ḥarfü'l-Ġayn; it is a five-couplet poem (beyit) written in the same remel pattern ("Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilün") of aruz (quantitative metre). It has no redif (refrain word), and the rhyme is again the sound "-aġ" (aġ, duzâġ, aġ, yaġ, çerâġ, ṣaġ). That two ghazals follow each other in the divan with the same metre and rhyme suggests that the poet tried two separate poems on the same ground; the sources, however, hold no information on this. The ghazal is found in all four manuscripts (F 49b, M 70a, S 51b, Ü 44a). The differences between manuscripts are concentrated in the fourth and fifth couplets: the F manuscript reads "yâri ḫayâl" in place of "nârı ḫayâli," and in the fifth couplet "ḳurtulursa cân" in place of "ḳurtarursa cânı." Nothing is known about whom it was written for.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The main image of the ghazal is the hair. In the opening couplet the beloved's black hair is a net set to catch the bird of the heart. The lover has fallen into this trap "göz ḳızardup," literally "having reddened the eye," that is, in a state of blind rage, not knowing what she was doing; Gülşen Kaya explains the expression as "gözünü karartıp" (having blackened one's eye, thrown caution aside). The words bird, net and snare (duzâġ) build a hunting scene and form a congruence of images (tenasüp). Kaya also cites this couplet when listing the couplets of the divan in which the heart is likened to a bird and the hair to a snare.

The second couplet carries the most striking word play of the ghazal. In the opening couplet "aġ" at the end of the first line means net; in the second couplet the same word in the phrase "yüzi aġ" means "ak," that is, white. The use in rhyme of two words that are written and pronounced alike but differ in meaning is the figure of cinas (pun). In the same line there is also a colour contrast between "zülfi ḳara" (black-haired) and "yüzi aġ" (white-faced). Kaya says that in divan poetry the beloved's hair is always black, that with its blackness it makes the lover lose her way and leads her astray, and she cites this couplet as an example. In the couplet the lover's striving not to incline toward moon-faced beauties and yet being led astray expresses, in plain words, the defeat of the will before beauty.

The third and fourth couplets move to images of fire and light. The lover's breast is a lamp; love is its wick, and blood and the fat of the heart are its fuel. The wick has burned so far that the blood has dried and the fat has melted. Kaya notes that the wick (fetîl) is an element of comparison for love through its burning and being burned, and that in this couplet the image of a burning wick is set up. Among the words wick, fat and burning there is again a congruence of images. In the fourth couplet the source of light changes: the lamp that lights the house of the heart is the image of the beloved's fire-red cheeks. Kaya gives this couplet in her discussion of candle (şem‘) and lamp (çerâġ) as an example in which, had the image of the fire of the beloved's cheeks not lit a lamp in the house of the heart, the lover would have remained for ever in the darkness of grief. Thus the same fire in one couplet consumes the lover and in the other saves her from the darkness.

The closing couplet returns to the opening one. The beloved is this time called a fairy (peri), and her hair is a hook. Kaya says that because of its curl the hair is likened to a hook, that the lover is caught on the hook of the beloved's hair, and that this is a snare hard to escape. The net at the beginning of the ghazal and the hook at its end are the two ends of the same hunting conception. The phrase "Key hünerdür" (what a great feat) expresses with mild mockery that escaping the calamity alive is almost impossible.

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. 90, Ghazal 73 (F 49b, M 70a, S 51b, Ü 44a).
  • Sabiha Gemici, Mihrî Hatun Divanı: Karşılaştırmalı Metin, Cümle Yapısı ve Cümle Türleri, doctoral dissertation, Uludağ University, Balıkesir 1990, pp. 507-508 (ghazal 75 in Gemici).

Academic studies

  • Gülşen Kaya, Mihrî Hâtun Divânı'nın Tahlili, master's thesis, Fırat University Institute of Social Sciences, Elazığ 2010, pp. 141, 147, 167, 212, 240. openaccess.firat.edu.tr

Books

  • Didem Havlioğlu (ed.), Ġazeliyyât-ı Mihrî-i Ḥaḳîre, OTAP electronic edition, ghazal 75 (text published on the türkoloji-iran page, 2007).

Online sources