Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Ḫırḳa-i ‘irfândan it zâhid başuña tâclıḳ
Ger dilerseñ görmeyesin tâ ebed muḥtâclıḳ
Cur‘a-i ‘aşḳ-ı mecâzî nûş eyle ṣıdḳ ile
Tâ ḥaḳîḳatden yaña yol bulasın mi‘râclıḳ
Nefsüñi ten ḫânesinde çek ḳanâ‘at küncine
Kim seni esrâr-ı ġayba irgüre bu açlıḳ
Cehd idüp dîdâra ir çekme beriyye zaḥmetin
İdegör Ka‘be ṭavâfın itmeden ḥuccâclıḳ
Nice bir nâ-ḥaḳ yere ḳanlar dökersin ẓulm ile
Var ise ‘aḳluñ gel eyle nefsüñe Ḥaccâc'lıḳ
Ney gibi iñle derûnuñdan ḳo bülbül nâlesin
Kumrı gibi dost dost di eyleme dürrâclıḳ
Aṭlasına dirme sen Mihrî emîrüñ fâriġ ol
Dervişüñ yiter palâsı ‘ârife dîbâclıḳ

In English

1. O ascetic (zâhid, one devoted to outward worship, a dry pietist), if you wish never to know want, make a crown for your head from the cloak of gnosis (‘irfân).

2. Drink the draught of metaphorical love (love for a human being) sincerely, so that you may find a path of ascension (mi‘râc) toward the Truth. (Metaphorical love is thought of as a step leading to the true love felt for God.)

3. Draw your lower self (nefs) into the corner of contentment in the house of the body; for this hunger will bring you to the secrets of the unseen.

4. Strive and attain the vision of God; do not bear the hardship of the deserts; circle the Kaaba (in the heart) before you set out on the pilgrimage.

5. How long will you shed blood wrongfully with cruelty? If you have any sense, come and practise the tyranny of Hajjaj upon your own lower self. (Hajjaj ibn Yusuf was a governor of the Umayyad period, famous for his cruelty.)

6. Moan from within like the reed flute (ney), leave off the nightingale's lament; say "friend, friend" like the turtledove, do not behave like the francolin (dürrâc).

7. O Mihrî, do not strive after the emir's satin, give it up; the dervish's coarse cloak is enough as brocade for the man of gnosis. (The couplet can be read in two ways: Arslan's reading "dirme" may be understood as "deme" (do not say) or, from the Old Turkish verb "dirmek," as "gathering, hoarding"; with the reading "virme" in Havlioğlu's text the sense "do not give your heart to the emir's satin" emerges. In both readings the main meaning is the same.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The seventy-seventh ghazal (gazel) of the divan stands in the section Ḥarfü'l-Ḳâf and consists of seven couplets (beyit). It is written in the remel foot of aruz (quantitative metre) in the pattern "Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilün." The rhyme is the sound "-âc," and the redif (refrain word) is the suffix "-lıḳ" (tâclıḳ, muḥtâclıḳ, mi‘râclıḳ, ḥuccâclıḳ, Ḥaccâc'lıḳ, dürrâclıḳ, dîbâclıḳ). The word "açlıḳ" in the third couplet does not fit this rhyme exactly in sound; in Havlioğlu's text this word is written "aclıḳ." Of the four manuscripts on which the edition rests, the ghazal is found only in the Ü manuscript (44b). The seventy-eighth ghazal, which follows immediately, is also written in the same metre, rhyme and refrain, opens with the same words "tâclıḳ" and "muḥtâclıḳ," and is likewise only in the Ü manuscript. Nothing is known about whom it was written for.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

This ghazal is one of the poems in Mihrî's divan, seldom seen there, that lean toward advice and Sufism. The addressee is not the beloved but the ascetic (zâhid); the poet advises him inner purification in place of outward piety. Gülşen Kaya notes that Mihrî was not a mystic poet but, like all divan poets, was raised within the Sufi tradition and used Sufism as a means rather than an end. According to Kaya, the second couplet expresses that the first stage of reaching divine love is metaphorical love. In the same couplet "mi‘râc" is an allusion to the Prophet's ascension to heaven; drinking the draught of love is counted as the beginning of an ascent toward the Truth.

In the opening couplet a link is made between cloak and crown. The cloak (hırka) is the dervish's garment, and the crown is the symbol of sovereignty and standing. The poet tells the ascetic to make the cloak of gnosis a crown for his head; whoever does so will never be in want of anyone. The sound similarity between "tâclıḳ" and "muḥtâclıḳ" underlines the contrast between crown and need, that is, between wealth and poverty.

The third and fourth couplets describe the discipline of the lower self and the inner journey. The lower self must withdraw into the corner of contentment in the house of the body and be trained by hunger; the way to the secrets of the unseen passes through here. In the fourth couplet, instead of enduring the hardship of the desert road to go on the pilgrimage, one is advised to reach the vision of God through effort and to circle the Kaaba in the heart.

The most striking word play of the ghazal is the pair "ḥuccâc" and "Ḥaccâc" in the fourth and fifth couplets. The first is a plural meaning pilgrims, the second is the name of the Umayyad governor Hajjaj ibn Yusuf. The use in rhyme, one after the other, of two words that are very close in spelling but different in meaning is the figure of cinas (pun). Kaya notes that the concept of the lower self (nefs) is hardly seen in the ghazals and kasides, that it occurs only in the fifth couplet of this ghazal, and that it is dealt with frequently in the Tażarru‘-nâme. The poet tells the one who sheds blood wrongfully to direct that cruelty at his own lower self; the name of Hajjaj is used here as a symbol of tyranny and forms an allusion (telmih).

In the sixth couplet images of birds and instruments come together. The ney moans from within; the nightingale's lament, by contrast, is an outward display. The turtledove coos "dost, dost" (friend, friend). Kaya notes that the turtledove, through its cooing and its single mate, is among the birds that describe the lover like the nightingale, and that in this couplet, where it is mentioned together with the dürrâc, a bird of the partridge kind, it expresses divine love and the dervish. The relation among ney, nightingale, turtledove and dürrâc forms a congruence of images (tenasüp); and the repetition of the word "dost" imitates the voice of the turtledove.

The closing couplet is one of the clearest expressions in the divan of turning one's face from the goods of the world. Satin (atlas) is the precious cloth worn by emirs, while the palas is the dervish's cloak of coarse wool. Kaya says that in the divan felt and palas describe dervishhood, poverty and stripping oneself of worldly goods, while satin describes wealth and show; she notes that in this couplet the dervish's palas is set above the emir's satin and that the man of gnosis should prefer it. That the palas is "dîbâ," that is, silk brocade, for the man of gnosis expresses the reversal of values with a fine invention.

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. 92, Ghazal 77 (only Ü 44b).
  • Sabiha Gemici, Mihrî Hatun Divanı: Karşılaştırmalı Metin, Cümle Yapısı ve Cümle Türleri, doctoral dissertation, Uludağ University, Balıkesir 1990, pp. 510-511 (ghazal 79 in Gemici).

Academic studies

  • Gülşen Kaya, Mihrî Hâtun Divânı'nın Tahlili, master's thesis, Fırat University Institute of Social Sciences, Elazığ 2010, pp. 34, 47, 54, 57, 86, 204, 241, 279, 293. openaccess.firat.edu.tr

Books

  • Didem Havlioğlu (ed.), Ġazeliyyât-ı Mihrî-i Ḥaḳîre, OTAP electronic edition, ghazal 79 (text published on the türkoloji-iran page, 2007).

Online sources