Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mef‘ûlü Fâ‘ilâtün Mef‘ûlü Fâ‘ilâtün

Taḥṣîl odur ki ‘âşıḳ ma‘şûḳa ola vâṣıl
Ḥâṣıl budur cihânda taḥṣîlden ne ḥâṣıl
Cûy-ı kenâra her dem seyr eyle ol revâne
Eyyâmı nev-bahâruñ tiz geçer olma ġâfil
Devlet anuñ ki bu dem rûy-ı nigâra ḳarşu
Nûş ide sâġar-ı mül meh-tâb ola meşa‘il
Efsâne ile zâhid künc-i riyâda ḳalma
Ġam-nâk cân u dilden mül def‘ ider belâ bil
Efġânlar itdügince şâm u seḥerde her dem
Ṣaḥn-ı çemende gûş it billah ne dir belâbil
Dûlâb-veş nigâruñ gördükçe gülsitânda
Ḳıl eşk-i çeşmüñ ile ḫâk-i rehini pür-gil
İn‘âma geldük ey dost bir bûse vir lebüñden
Maḥrûm ḳılma luṭf it şey‘-lillah itse sâ’il
Boynına Mihrî'nüñ gel ṣal zülf-i ‘anberînüñ
Dîvâneye bilürsin lâzım durur selâsil

In English

1. True learning is for the lover to reach the beloved. This is what one gains in the world; what else is gained from schooling? (Taḥṣîl is study, ḥâṣıl what is obtained, vâṣıl one who has attained; the three words are bound together by sounds from the same root.)

2. Look at that flowing one beside the stream at every moment; the days of spring pass quickly, do not be heedless. (The couplet can be read in two ways: "revân" means both running water and the beloved who walks with a swaying gait; a cypress-tall beloved is called "serv-i revân", the walking cypress.)

3. Fortunate is the one who at this moment, facing the beloved's face, drinks the cup of wine, with the moonlight as his torch. (Manuscript M reads "bu demde" in place of "ki bu dem".)

4. O ascetic, do not sit in the corner of hypocrisy with fables and empty counsel. Know that wine drives calamity away from a sorrowful soul and heart.

5. As the nightingales lament at every moment, evening and dawn, listen, by God, in the middle of the meadow to what they say. (Belâbil is the plural of bülbül, nightingale. Manuscript M reads "nedür" in place of "ne dir", that is, "what is it".)

6. Whenever you see the beloved in the rose garden, fill the dust of her path with mud with the tears of your eyes, like a water wheel. (A dolap is a water wheel that draws water and groans as it turns; the lover who sheds water without ceasing as he turns round and round is likened to it.)

7. O friend, we have come to ask for a gift; give a kiss from your lips. Do not turn away empty-handed, be kind, if the beggar says "for God's sake".

8. Come, cast your amber-scented tress around Mihrî's neck; you know that a madman needs chains. (Selâsil means chains; in the past the insane were put in chains. In divan poetry the beloved's long, braided hair is likened to this chain.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The ninety-fifth ghazal of the divan has eight couplets and is composed in the muzâri meter of the aruz (quantitative metre), in the pattern "Mef‘ûlü Fâ‘ilâtün Mef‘ûlü Fâ‘ilâtün". This pattern divides into two equal halves and leaves a distinct pause in the middle of each line; the flowing, almost song-like manner of the ghazal comes largely from this pattern. 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). This ghazal has no redif; the rhyme rests on the sound "-il" (vâṣıl, ḥâṣıl, ġâfil, meşa‘il, bil, belâbil, pür-gil, sâ’il, selâsil). It is among the ghazals of the divan ending in the letter lâm and is found in all four manuscripts (F 55b, M 77a, S 57b, Ü 50a). There is no record of whom it was written for or on what occasion.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet is a sentence of thought that gives direction to the whole ghazal: real learning is union with the beloved, and nothing is gained from other schooling. The closeness of sound and root among the words "Taḥṣîl", "ḥâṣıl" and "vâṣıl" gives the couplet the richness of ishtiqaq (the use together of words derived from the same root). When Gülşen Kaya examines the places in the divan where school, learning and schooling are mentioned, she says that the lover's schooling is to shed tears and sigh on the beloved's path, while the real schooling is union with the beloved, and gives this couplet as an example. This attitude, which belittles madrasa learning against love, is part of the criticism that divan poetry directs at the ascetic and the preacher.

The second and third couplets draw a picture of a spring gathering. The bank of a stream, spring, the beloved's face, the wine cup and the moonlight burning in place of a torch are the elements of this gathering. Kaya cites the third couplet as an example when she explains that gatherings in the divan are usually held in spring, at night and by moonlight. The word "revân" in the second couplet is a tevriye (double entendre, the use of a word so as to suggest two meanings at once) that evokes at once flowing water and the beloved walking with a swaying gait. Because the days of spring, "eyyâm-ı nev-bahâr", pass quickly, one must not be heedless; this is the call to seize the opportunity that is often seen in divan poetry.

The fourth and fifth couplets are the most striking place of the ghazal in terms of wordplay. The fourth couplet ends with the words "belâ bil", "(it drives) calamity away, know it", the fifth with the word "belâbil", nightingales. Between these two rhymes, identical in spelling and sound and different in meaning, there is a cinas (pun, the use of words alike in sound with different meanings); because one consists of two words and the other of a single word, this is called a compound pun (mürekkep cinas) in classical rhetoric. In the fourth couplet the ascetic is told to turn to the wine that removes sorrow instead of idling away in the corner of hypocrisy with fables. In the fifth couplet the listener is asked to attend to the nightingales' lament at evening and dawn. Kaya gives this fifth couplet as an example when she shows that in the divan evening is mentioned only together with morning.

In the sixth couplet the lover's tears are likened to a water wheel that sheds water as it turns. A dolap is a wheel that in old gardens raised water and creaked and groaned as it turned; in divan poetry it is a counterpart of the weeping, lamenting lover. Whenever the lover sees the beloved in the rose garden, he should turn the dust of her path to mud with his tears.

The seventh couplet imagines the lover as a beggar and the beloved as a generous giver. "İn‘âm" is a gift, and "şey‘en lillah" is the phrase beggars use to mean "for God's sake". Kaya notes that the type of the beggar is used in the divan to express the lover and is treated in terms of begging for the beloved's beauty, and she gives this couplet as an example in two separate sections when she says that the greatest gift to the lover is the beloved's kiss.

The closing couplet rests on the likeness between hair and chain. Mihrî asks the beloved to cast her amber-scented tress around her neck, because a madman needs a chain. Kaya says that a likeness is drawn between hair and chain in length and in being braided, that the abundance of the braids of the hair leads to its being called "selâsil", chains, and she gives this couplet as an example. The madman lover and the chain are a familiar mazmun (conventional image) resting on the old custom of chaining the insane; here the chain becomes a bond of love that the lover wants to put around his own neck of his own free will.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Mehmet Arslan (ed.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları (Kültür Eserleri Dizisi 576), 2018, pp. 101-102, Ghazal 95 (F 55b, M 77a, S 57b, Ü 50a). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr
  • Sabiha Gemici, Mihrî Hatun Divanı: Karşılaştırmalı Metin, Cümle Yapısı ve Cümle Türleri, doctoral dissertation, Uludağ Üniversitesi, Balıkesir 1990 (comparative text of the ghazal, number 98 in Gemici's numbering).

Academic studies

  • Gülşen Kaya, Mihrî Hâtun Divânı'nın Tahlili, master's thesis, Fırat Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Elazığ 2010, pp. 105-106, 113, 139, 199, 268. openaccess.firat.edu.tr

Online sources