Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mefâ‘îlün Mefâ‘îlün Mefâ‘îlün Mefâ‘îlün

Yine dil murġına dâne döker ne ḥâldür zülfüñ
Meger cân boynına ḥalḳa ṣalar muḥtâldür zülfüñ
Ḳamer serv üzre çıḳmışdur görinür ṭurrañ altında
Cemâlüñ gülsitânından egilmiş dâldur zülfüñ
Egerçi çeşm-i ḫûn-rîzüñ içer nâ-ḥaḳ yere ḳanı
Velî ḳatline ‘uşşâḳuñ iñen fi'l-ḥâldür zülfüñ
Dizer bir ḳılda ‘uşşâḳı meger ḥüsnüñ ḳıyâmetdür
Ki ‘aḳl u dîn ü dil alur begüm deccâldür zülfüñ
Hevâ-yı zülfüñüñ Mihrî daḫi geçmez hevâsından
K'anı yel gibi yeldürdi nice meh sâldür zülfüñ

In English

1. Once again your tress scatters grain for the bird of the heart; what a state this is! Perhaps it is casting a noose around the neck of the soul; your tress is a trickster. ("Ḥâl" means both "state" and the beauty mark on the face; the mark is imagined as the grain of bait that the tress scatters to catch the bird of the heart.)

2. Your face, visible beneath your forelock, is a moon risen above a cypress; and your tress is a bent branch hanging down from the rose garden of your beauty. (The face is likened to the moon and the stature to the cypress. "Dâl" means both a tree branch and the curved letter dâl of the Arabic alphabet. Manuscripts M and S read "gülsitânında", "in the rose garden", in place of "gülsitânından", "from the rose garden".)

3. Although your blood-shedding eye drinks blood without right, it is your tress that descends at once to kill the lovers. ("İñen" suggests both a tress hanging down and one that springs into action and sets to work.)

4. Your tress strings the lovers on a single hair; perhaps your beauty is the Day of Resurrection. For, my lord, your tress is the Antichrist, taking away reason, faith and heart. (The Antichrist, deccal, is in the belief the liar who will appear near the end of time and lead people astray. Manuscript F has only "dîn", "faith", in the second line, in place of "dîn ü dil".)

5. Mihrî too does not give up her longing for your tress; for your tress has driven her like the wind for many months and years. ("Hevâ" means both desire and air, so the words "wind" and "air" call one another up. "Meh" means month and "sâl" year; manuscripts F and S read "nice sâldür" in place of "nice meh sâldür".)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The ninety-fourth ghazal of the divan has five couplets and is composed in the hezec meter of the aruz (quantitative metre), in the pattern "Mefâ‘îlün Mefâ‘îlün Mefâ‘îlün Mefâ‘îlün". The ghazal is the verse form devoted to love and beauty, in which the two lines of the opening couplet rhyme and the closing couplet carries the poet's pen name (mahlas). The rhyme rests on the sound "-âl" (ḥâl, muḥtâl, dâl, fi'l-ḥâl, deccâl, sâl); the redif (refrain word) is "-dür zülfüñ", "it is your tress". All the couplets are built on the beloved's tress, and each loads the tress with a new epithet: it is a trickster, a bent branch, a shedder of blood, the Antichrist, and a wind that drives one about for years. The poem is found in all four manuscripts (F 52b, M 74a, S 55a, Ü 50b).

Response to Necâtî (Nazire)

A nazire (response poem) is a poem a poet writes in answer to one she admires, in the same metre, rhyme and refrain. In his study identifying twenty nazires that Mihrî wrote to Necâtî, Metin Hakverdioğlu places this ghazal beside Necâtî's ghazal with the redif "zülfüñ". Necâtî's ghazal is also written in the same pattern of the hezec meter and begins with the opening couplet "Cemâlüñ mushafı hakkı mübârek fâldur zülfüñ / Ki tâvûsî mürekkeble yazılmış dâldur zülfüñ". Comparing the two poems shows how Mihrî uses the rhyme words she took from her master. In Necâtî, "dâl" is a letter written on the page with peacock-colored ink, since the beloved's beauty is likened to a Qur'an codex; in Mihrî the same word is a tree branch hanging down from the garden of beauty. Necâtî calls the tress an "infidel" and, in his closing couplet, complains that this infidel tress concerns itself with every Muslim but always neglects him when it comes to his turn; Mihrî, in her fourth couplet, declares the tress outright the Antichrist and so carries the same religious imagery to the scene of the Day of Resurrection.

It is noteworthy that the same refrain appears in another poet from Amasya. In his study comparing the shared refrains in the divans of Mihrî Hatun and Tâcîzâde Câfer Çelebi, Sıtkı Nazik lists the refrain "zülfüñ" among the similar-refrain poems of the two poets; in Câfer Çelebi's divan this refrain occurs in one ghazal (G.99). Nazik asks, on the basis of these similarities, whether the two poets influenced one another, but gives no separate interpretation for this ghazal.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet builds the hunting and trap imagery of divan poetry on a play on words. The heart is a bird, the tress the hunter who scatters grain for it; the grain is the beauty mark on the face. The phrase "ne ḥâldür" expresses both bewilderment, "what a state this is", and admiration, "what a mark". Gülşen Kaya notes that in the divan the tress catches the bird of the heart with the "hâl", imagined now as a net and now as grain, and says that only in this couplet is the tress called "muḥtâl", that is, deceitful. The grain in the first line and the noose and ring in the second are the parts of a hunting scene.

In the second couplet the beloved's whole appearance is fitted into a single picture. The stature is a cypress, the face a moon risen above that cypress, the forelock a shadow falling over the moon; the tress hangs down like a branch bent from the garden of beauty. Kaya says that the word "dâl" is likened to the tress in the divan for its curvature, both as a letter and as a tree branch, and gives this couplet as an example in her discussion of the forelock and the lock falling on the forehead. The crooked writing of the letter dâl and the shape of the hanging branch come together in one word.

In the third and fourth couplets the killing power of the tress comes to the fore. The eye sheds blood, but it is the tress that "descends at once" to kill the lovers. In the fourth couplet the tress strings the lovers on a single hair; this scene recalls the gathering of people on the Day of Resurrection. Kaya refers to this couplet when she notes that one couplet uses the expression "resurrection" to describe the degree of beauty. Between resurrection and the Antichrist there is a clear tenasüp (congruence of images, the use together of words close in meaning): the appearance of the Antichrist is counted among the signs of the Day of Resurrection. The tress that takes away reason, faith and heart is likened to the Antichrist who leads people astray. Kaya also cites separately another couplet in the divan in which the lower self is likened to the Antichrist.

In the closing couplet it is said that Mihrî does not give up the longing for the tress and is driven like the wind. The phrases "Hevâ-yı zülf" and "hevâsından" use the same word twice and form a tekrir (repetition); hevâ means both air and desire, and the wind comes out of this air. Kaya gives this couplet as an example in the section where she shows that, because of its length, the tress is mentioned together with life, tale and year, saying that time too is as long as the beloved's tress. The words "meh" and "sâl", month and year, link the length of the tress to the lover's years of running.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Mehmet Arslan (ed.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları (Kültür Eserleri Dizisi 576), 2018, pp. 100-101, Ghazal 94 (F 52b, M 74a, S 55a, Ü 50b). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr

Academic studies

  • Metin Hakverdioğlu, "Mihrî Hâtun'un Necâtî Bey'in Şiirlerine Nazîreleri", Turkish Studies 4/2 (Winter 2009), pp. 522-551 (comparison: Mihrî XCVII, by the number in the author's own edition, pp. 535-536), doi:10.7827/TurkishStudies.638.
  • Gülşen Kaya, Mihrî Hâtun Divânı'nın Tahlili, master's thesis, Fırat Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Elazığ 2010, pp. 36, 126, 140, 144, 150, 263. 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. 137, 140).

Online sources