Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Olmasun aġyâr ile yâri İlâhî kimsenüñ
Arṭmasun günden güne derd ile âhı kimsenüñ
Giceler ney gibi nâlân eylerem gündüz fiġân
Olmasun bencileyin ḥâli İlâhî kimsenüñ
Āsitânından beni men‘ itme nâṣiḥ dilberüñ
Ka‘beye yüz süricek ḳalmaz günâhı kimsenüñ
Zâhidâ ‘ayb eyleme dil virdügüm dilberlere
Olmamaḳ bunlara olur mı nigâhı kimsenüñ
Ḥüsn iline şâh olalıdan yaḳar dil şehrini
Böyle ẓâlim olmasun hiç pâdişâhı kimsenüñ
Gâh zülfi ḥâ’il olur ruḫlarına geh ḫaṭı
Ḳalmasun Mihrî seḥâb içinde mâhı kimsenüñ

In English

1. O God, may no one's beloved keep company with rivals; may no one's grief and sighing grow from day to day.

2. At night I lament like a reed flute, by day I cry out; O God, may no one's condition be like mine.

3. O counselor, do not keep me from the beloved's threshold; once a person rubs his face on the Kaaba, no one's sin remains. (The beloved's threshold is likened to the Kaaba; the lover who rubs his face there is likewise cleansed of his sins.)

4. O ascetic, do not blame me for the beauties to whom I gave my heart; is it in anyone's power not to look at them? (The couplet can be read in two ways: "Can anyone's gaze stay from turning to them?" or "Is not looking at them within anyone's means?" The sense comes out the same.) (The S manuscript reads the singular "dilbere" in place of "dilberlere".)

5. Ever since she became shah of the realm of beauty, she has been burning the city of the heart; may no one's sovereign be so tyrannical.

6. Sometimes her locks, sometimes the down on her cheeks come as a veil before her face; O Mihrî, may no one's moon be left inside the clouds. (The moon is the beloved's face; the cloud is the hair and down that cover it.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The eightieth ghazal of the Divan has six couplets and is written in the remel metre of the aruz (quantitative metre), in the pattern "Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilün". Its redif (refrain word) is "kimsenüñ" (of anyone); the rhyme rests on the sounds "-âhı / -âli" (âhı, ḥâli, günâhı, nigâhı, pâdişâhı, mâhı). In the second couplet "ḥâli" answers the rhyme only with the long â, while in all the other couplets the "-âhı" sound is repeated. The ghazal appears in all four manuscripts used by Arslan (F, M, S, Ü). Nothing is known about whom it was written for.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal is built from beginning to end on a pattern of prayer and curse. The verbs "olmasun", "arṭmasun" and "ḳalmasun" (may it not be, may it not grow, may it not remain), together with the address "İlâhî" (O God), which occurs twice, give the poem the air of a supplication. While describing her own pain, the poet turns it into a wish that it befall no one else: "may no one's condition be like mine." The redif "kimsenüñ" renews this wish in every couplet and turns a personal complaint into a general hope.

In the second couplet the lover is likened to a reed flute that wails at night. The ney, an instrument that laments because it was torn from the reed bed and hollowed out, is one of the familiar images of the pain of separation in divan poetry. Gülşen Kaya cites this couplet when discussing the lover's sighs and cries that go unanswered.

The third and fourth couplets bring on stage two familiar counter-figures of divan poetry: the counselor (nâsıh) who gives advice, and the pious ascetic (zâhid). The counselor wants to draw the lover away from the beloved's door; the poet answers by likening the beloved's threshold to the Kaaba. As Kaya explains, just as no sin remains for one who rubs his face on the Kaaba, so the lover who rubs his face on the beloved's threshold is cleansed of his sins. This religious comparison is both a simile and a reply turned against the counselor in his own language. In the fourth couplet, addressed to the ascetic, it is said that not looking at beauties is not within one's power; looking at beauty is presented as something beyond a person's control.

The fifth couplet presents the beloved as shah of "ḥüsn ili", the land of beauty, and says that she burns the "dil şehri", the city of the heart. The words shah, land, city and sovereign form a congruence of images (tenasüp). The wish at the end of the line, "may no one's sovereign be so tyrannical", ties the beloved-as-ruler image to an expectation of justice; the tyrannical sovereign is the usual counterpart in divan poetry of the cruel beloved. Kaya mentions this couplet among her examples of the beloved portrayed as a shah. In the electronic text prepared by Didem Havlioğlu, the same line reads "yıḳar" in place of "yaḳar"; in this reading the beloved is a ruler who tears down the city of the heart, and the couplet comes close to the idiom "gönül yıkmak" (to wound someone's heart, literally to demolish a heart), which thinks of the heart as a building.

In the closing couplet the beloved's face is the moon, while her locks and the down on her cheeks (ḫaṭ) are the clouds that cover it (seḥâb). Kaya notes that in the Divan the down, like the lock of hair, is treated as a cloud veiling the face, and she cites this couplet. The last wish is tied to the redif as well: "may no one's moon be left inside the clouds." With the moon and the cloud, and with the poet's pen name (mahlas), which means "sun", the images of the couplet come together in the sky.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Mehmet Arslan (ed.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları (Kültür Eserleri Dizisi 576), 2018, p. 94, Ghazal 80 (F 53b, M 74b, S 55b, Ü 46b). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr

Academic studies

  • Gülşen Kaya, Mihrî Hâtun Divânı'nın Tahlili, master's thesis, Fırat Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Elazığ 2010, pp. 56, 134, 146, 227. openaccess.firat.edu.tr

Books

  • Didem Havlioğlu (ed.), Ğazeliyyāt-ı Mihrī, OTAP electronic edition, 2007 (transliteration published on the türkoloji-iran site, ghazal 83).

Online sources