Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Müstef‘ilün Müstef‘ilün Müstef‘ilün Müstef‘ilün

Ġamzeñ ḫadengin yâ ḳaşuñ tâ çekdi peykânına dek
Atdı geçürdi sîneden ‘âşıḳlaruñ cânına dek
Boynına çeşmi ‘âşıḳuñ zünnâr-ı zülfin baġladı
Şimdi görüñ ol kâfiri ḳaṣd eyler îmânına dek
Cârûb olur kirpüklerüm bâzâra gitdükçe ḥabîb
Ṣular gözümüñ yaşları râhını dükkânına dek
Budur ‘aceb kim ol kemân-ebrûsı tîrin atmadan
Yâsına ḳırbân olmaġa cânum gider yanına dek
Gitdükçe her dem ol ṣanem sînem nişânın atmaġa
Yüzüm sürerem izine tâ oḳı meydânına dek
Ṭarusı tarlası ṣanup ṭolandı kûyuñı raḳîb
Bir kesme urdum ol ṭoñuz tâ gitdi ormanına dek
Çün ‘andelîbisin bugün gül yüzli yâruñ Mihriyâ
Var imdi nâlân itmege dilber gülistânına dek

In English

1. Your ghamze (sidelong glance) is an arrow, your brow a bow; it drew the arrow back to its very head, shot, and sent it through the breast to the very soul of the lovers. (The ghamze is the beloved's languid sidelong glance; in divan poetry the brow is likened to a bow and the ghamze to an arrow.)

2. The beloved's eye tied the zunnar (infidel's girdle) of her lock around the lover's neck. Now see that infidel aim all the way to his faith. (The zunnar is the girdle that Christian clergy tie at the waist and in divan poetry is a sign of unbelief; being black and long, it is likened to the hair.)

3. Whenever the beloved goes to the bazaar, my eyelashes become a broom on her road; the waters of my tears sprinkle her path all the way to her shop. (Dirt roads were swept and sprinkled so that the dust would not rise; the lover performs this service with her lashes and her tears.)

4. This is the wonder: before that bow-browed one has even shot her arrow, my soul goes to her side to be sacrificed to her bow. (The couplet can be read in two ways: "ḳırbân" means sacrifice, and also recalls "kirbân", the quiver of a bow; then the soul runs to the beloved's side to be the sheath for her bow. In Havlioğlu's transliteration the word is read "ḳurbān" and "yâsına" as "yasına"; this reading brings the first sense forward.)

5. Each time that idol of beauty goes to shoot at the target of my breast, I rub my face on her trail, all the way to the archery field. (The archery field is the ground where archers practice; the idol, sanem, expresses in divan poetry the beloved's beauty and hardness together.)

6. The rival took your quarter for his millet field and kept wandering about it. I struck that pig one blow, and he fled all the way to his forest. (A wild boar raiding a millet field is a scene from village life; "kesme" is understood here as a blow, a stroke.)

7. O Mihrî, since you are today the nightingale of the rose-faced beloved, go now, all the way to the beloved's rose garden, to wail and lament.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The ninetieth ghazal of the Divan has seven couplets and is written in the recez metre of the aruz, in the pattern "Müstef‘ilün Müstef‘ilün Müstef‘ilün Müstef‘ilün". The ghazal is a verse form that treats love and beauty, whose first couplet has both lines rhymed, and whose last couplet carries the poet's pen name. The rhyme rests on the sound "-ânına" (peykânına, cânına, îmânına, dükkânına, yanına, meydânına, ormanına, gülistânına); the redif is the particle "dek", meaning "as far as, up to". That every couplet ends in "…-a dek" gives the poem a sense of distance and movement: the arrow goes to the soul, the eye to the faith, the tears to the shop, the rival to his forest. In Sıtkı Nazik's study comparing the refrains of Mihrî and Tâcîzâde Câfer Çelebi, the redif "dek" is seen in Mihrî's Divan only in this ghazal. The ghazal is found only in the Ü manuscript (49b). There is no record of whom or on what occasion it was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The first two couplets set up two familiar sequences of divan imagery. The first is the archery sequence: the brow is a bow, the ghamze an arrow, and the iron at the arrow's tip the peykân, the arrowhead. Gülşen Kaya cites this couplet when she says that the most important image set up with the ghamze in the Divan is its likening to an arrow, and notes that the brow is thought of as a bow, the ghamze as an arrow and the eyelash as the arrowhead. In the second couplet the imagery passes into the field of religion. The beloved's eye has tied the zunnar of her lock around the lover's neck; because the zunnar is a sign of unbelief, the eye is also called a "kâfir" (infidel) and aims at the lover's faith. Kaya gives this couplet among the examples in which the lock is mentioned with unbelief and the zunnar in terms of color, and summarizes the same conception in her section on religion and Sufism.

The third and sixth couplets are everyday scenes that carry the ghazal beyond the usual patterns of divan poetry. The beloved goes to the bazaar, the lover's eyelashes sweep her road, and her tears sprinkle the road all the way to the shop to settle the dust. Broom and water recall a known practice for the cleanliness of roads in old city life; the lover is ready to do this service with her own body. In the section on objects in her thesis, Kaya counts the word "cârûb", meaning broom, among the objects that occur in the Divan. In the sixth couplet the scene moves from the city to the village. The rival took the beloved's quarter for his own millet field and kept wandering about it; the lover strikes him a blow, and "that pig" flees all the way to his forest. Kaya notes in two places that the pig, whose flesh is forbidden and which is held among the people to be unclean, is used in the Divan only in this couplet, for the rival. The sight of a wild boar raiding a millet field and a farmer chasing it off expresses the anger felt toward the rival in a mocking popular tongue.

The fourth and fifth couplets return to the archery sequence. The beloved is "kemân-ebrû", bow-browed; before she has shot her arrow, the lover's soul runs to her side. The word "ḳırbân" is the knot of the couplet. This spelling in Arslan's transliteration suggests, besides the word for sacrifice, the word "kirbân", the quiver, and together with "yâ", the bow, it sets up a congruence of images (tenasüp). In the fifth couplet the beloved goes to shoot, and the lover follows behind her, rubbing her face on her track, all the way to the archery field. What is offered as the target is again the lover's breast.

In the closing couplet Mihrî addresses herself and closes the ghazal with the rose and nightingale motif. The beloved is the rose, the lover her nightingale; the nightingale's work is to wail in the rose garden. Thus the poem that has passed through the archery field, the bazaar and the millet field ends in the rose garden, the most familiar scene of divan poetry.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Mehmet Arslan (ed.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları (Kültür Eserleri Dizisi 576), 2018, pp. 98-99, Ghazal 90 (Ü 49b only). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr

Academic studies

  • Gülşen Kaya, Mihrî Hâtun Divânı'nın Tahlili, master's thesis, Fırat Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Elazığ 2010, pp. 38, 148, 160, 246, 279, 287. openaccess.firat.edu.tr
  • Sıtkı Nazik, "Benzer Redifli Şiirleri Bağlamında Mihrî Hatun ve Tâcî-zâde Cafer Çelebi'nin Karşılaştırılması", Uluslararası Amasya Âlimleri Sempozyumu Bildiriler Kitabı II, Amasya 2017, pp. 133-148 (refrain tables, pp. 136-137).

Books

  • Didem Havlioğlu (ed.), Ğazeliyyāt-ı Mihrī, OTAP electronic edition, 2007 (transliteration published on the türkoloji-iran site, ghazal 93).

Online sources