Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Gitmege ‘azm eylemişsin âh şâhum gitme gel
Ḳorḳaram kim saña te’s̱îr ide âhum gitme gel
Ḳılma maḥrûm ḫân-ı vaṣluñdan dil-i sâ’illeri
Āsitânuñdur bugün püşt ü penâhum gitme gel
Gerçi kim ‘aşḳuñ yolında cürmi çoḳdur ‘âşıḳuñ
Ben seni sevmekden özge yoḳ günâhum gitme gel
Çenberin çarḫuñ yaḳar nâr-ı şerârum dostum
‘Ālemi ẓulmetde ḳor dûd-ı siyâhum gitme gel
Ṭâḳ-ı ebrûñsuz sücûd itmez bilürsin ehl-i ‘aşḳ
Ehl-i islâma yazuḳdur ḳıble-gâhum gitme gel
Gün cemâlüñle münevver olmış iken cân u dil
Ẓulmet-i ġamda ḳoma Mihrî'yi mâhum gitme gel

In English

1. Ah, my king, you have resolved to leave; do not go, come back. I fear that my sigh (my burning lament, my curse) will touch you; do not go, come back.

2. Do not deprive the hearts of those who beg of you of the banquet of your union. Today my support and refuge is your threshold; do not go, come back.

3. Although the lover's offences on the path of love are many, I have no sin other than loving you. Do not go, come back.

4. My friend, the sparks of my fire burn the circle of the heavens; my black smoke leaves the world in darkness. Do not go, come back. (The lover's sigh rises to the sky like a fiery smoke; if the beloved leaves, this sigh will set the heavens alight and darken the world.)

5. You know that the people of love do not prostrate themselves without the arch of your eyebrow; O my qibla (the direction of prayer), it would be a pity for the Muslims, do not go, come back. (The eyebrow, because of its arched shape, is likened to the prayer niche; lovers left without a niche have no place to prostrate.)

6. While soul and heart are lit by the sun of your face, O my moon, do not leave Mihrî in the darkness of sorrow; do not go, come back.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The ninety-seventh ghazal of the divan stands in the section of the letter lâm and has six couplets. It is composed in the remel meter of the aruz (quantitative metre), in the pattern "Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilün". The redif (refrain word) is "-um gitme gel", "my ..., do not go, come back"; the rhyme rests on the sound "-âh" (şâh, âh, penâh, günâh, siyâh, ḳıble-gâh, mâh). The ghazal is found in all four manuscripts (F 55b, M 77a, S 58a, Ü 50b). In manuscript M the third and fourth couplets are in a different order; the same manuscript reads "ehl-i îmân" in place of "ehl-i islâm" in the fifth couplet. Manuscript F says "Gül cemâlüñle" in place of "Gün cemâlüñle" in the last couplet.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal is an entreaty from beginning to end. The refrain ends every couplet with the same two commands: do not go, come back. This pair recalls the words of someone calling after a person who is about to leave, and gives the poem an intimate tone close to spoken language. In his paper examining the refrains of Mihrî's divan, Sıtkı Nazik notes that this ghazal contains an entreaty: the beloved, a king, has resolved to leave; the poet is unwilling to accept being deprived of her; she says that if separation comes, the fire of her sigh will burn the circle of the heavens and her smoke will darken the world, and she asks the moon-faced one not to leave in the darkness of sorrow the lover who has been lit by the sun of the beloved's face.

The images in the couplets build this entreaty on the contrast of light and darkness. In the fourth couplet the lover's sigh is a black smoke rising to the sky; Gülşen Kaya cites this couplet when she examines the places in the divan where the sigh burns the circle of the heavens and leaves the world in darkness. In the last couplet the beloved is both sun and moon: her face is a sun that lights the soul and heart, and she is addressed as "mâhum" (my moon). Kaya explains with this couplet that sorrow is mentioned together with darkness in the divan, and that only the moon-faced beloved can dispel this darkness. The use together of the concepts sun, moon, light and darkness is tenasüp (congruence of images, the use together of words close in meaning); the setting of light and darkness against each other is the art of tezat (antithesis).

The third couplet is the simplest and most memorable of the ghazal: on the path of love the lover's offences are many, but the poet has no sin other than loving you. Kaya mentions this couplet among the places in the divan where the concept of sin is treated. The fifth couplet has a religious comparison. The beloved's eyebrow, because of its arched shape, is likened to the mihrab, the arched place toward which one turns in prayer, and the beloved herself to the qibla. The lovers do not prostrate without her eyebrow; if the beloved goes, the "ehl-i islâm" will be left without a qibla. This hyperbole, often seen in divan poetry, is a way of saying that separation is the collapse of a world for the lover. The word "ḫân" in the second couplet means banquet; together with "dil-i sâ’il" (the begging heart), the beloved's door becomes a banquet of the generous and the lovers become the poor waiting at that door.

In the ghazal the beloved is addressed as "şâhum", "dostum", "ḳıble-gâhum" and "mâhum". Calling the beloved a king is a widespread convention of divan poetry and by itself does not point to a particular person. There is no record that the ghazal was written about an actual separation, for instance on the occasion of a journey.

Historical Context

This ghazal is a nazire (response poem) to a ghazal by Necâtî Bey, Mihrî's contemporary and, according to the tezkires (biographical anthologies of poets), the poet she took as her model. A nazire is a response written to an admired poem in the same metre, rhyme and refrain. In his study comparing the nazires Mihrî wrote to Necâtî by going through the two divans, Metin Hakverdioğlu sets this ghazal beside ghazal number CCCXXXI of Necâtî's divan. Necâtî's ghazal is written in the same metre and with the same "gitme gel" refrain, and begins with the line "Âsmânîler geyüp gün gibi mâhum gitme gel". A significant share of the rhyme words of the two poems is shared: âh, günâh, siyâh, mâh and penâh occur in both. The phrase "püşt ü penâhum gitme gel" in the second line of one of Necâtî's couplets appears word for word in Mihrî's second couplet. Where Necâtî's lover takes the blame on himself, "Ben elümle itmişem bildüm günâhum" ("I did it with my own hand, I knew my sin"), Mihrî's lover says "seni sevmekden özge yoḳ günâhum" ("I have no sin other than loving you"); the two poems show a different lover's attitude within the same mould.

In the introduction to his study, Hakverdioğlu says that Mihrî set out by imitating Necâtî and sometimes wrote poems that give the feeling of truly matching her master; he states that the only respect in which she can be compared with Necâtî is that she has a feminine sensibility and is able to add to it a light flavor of lyricism. The tezkires also tell of the relationship between the two poets: according to Latîfî, Necâtî wrote the quatrain beginning "Ey benüm şi‘rüme naẓîre diyen" for Mihrî, who wrote nazires to his poems. This account has been questioned in recent years; Enes İlhan found, in a manuscript of Necâtî's divan, a note that the quatrain was written for Revânî. The date at which this ghazal was written is not known.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Mehmet Arslan (ed.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları (Kültür Eserleri Dizisi 576), 2018, pp. 102-103, Ghazal 97 (F 55b, M 77a, S 58a, 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 (introduction pp. 523-524; comparison: Necâtî CCCXXXI / Mihrî C, by the number in the author's own edition, pp. 537-538), doi:10.7827/TurkishStudies.638.
  • 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 (especially p. 138).
  • Gülşen Kaya, Mihrî Hâtun Divânı'nın Tahlili, master's thesis, Fırat Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Elazığ 2010 (entries on sin, sigh, darkness and gloom). openaccess.firat.edu.tr
  • Enes İlhan, "Mihrî Hâtun mu Revânî mi? 'Ey Benüm Şiirüme Nazire Diyen' Kim?", Hikmet-Akademik Edebiyat Dergisi 10/20 (2024), pp. 148-170.

Books

  • Didem Havlioğlu (ed.), Ġazeliyyât-ı Mihrî-i Ḥaḳîre, OTAP electronic edition, ghazal 100 (text published on the türkoloji-iran page, 2007).

Online sources