Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilün

Ṣubḥ-dem gülşene irdi yine üstâd-ı nesîm
Virdi ḫoş bûy-ı leṭâfet bezedi var ne kim
Sebzenüñ ṭıflına göstermek içün neşv gelüp
Dem-be-dem ṣaḥn-ı gülistânda ider ders ta‘lîm
Beñzedüp bâġ-ı cihânı yine firdevse bugün
Eyledi lâle ile gülşeni cennât-ı na‘îm
Cân demâġını mu‘aṭṭar ḳılur uş her demde
Gül ü nesrîn ü reyâḥîn ile gülşende nesîm
Es̱er-i luṭfı ile eyledi her bâġı behişt
Çün naẓar itdi gülistâna bu dem Rabb-i Kerîm
Nice naḳş itdi gülistândaki her bir varaḳa
Yed-i ḳudretle bugün gör yine Naḳḳâş-ı Ḳadîm
Fevt olup gitmiş iken luṭfına Ḥaḳḳ'uñ naẓar it
Gör nice buldı ḥayât uşda yine ‘aẓm-i remîm
Gülşenüñ her ṭarafı serv-i sehî oldı yine
Virdi ḫoş ẕevḳ u ṣafâ cân u cihâna nitekim
Ol durur taḫt-ı sa‘âdetde bugün Ḫân Aḥmed
Ṣıfatı şems-i münevverdür anuñ ẕâtı ḥalîm
Râḥatı ‘adlüñ ile buldı ḳamu ḫalḳ-ı cihân
Revnaḳı nâmuñ ile buldı şehâ heft-iḳlîm
Bûy-ı zülfüñden eger virmese gülşende ṣabâ
Gül gülistânda cihân ḫalḳına virmezdi şemîm
Ḫusrevâ gül ruḫuñuñ şevḳile gülşende ṭurup
Ṭûr-veş her şecer üstinde hezâr oldı kelîm
Ḫurrem itdükçe cihân rûyını geldükçe bahâr
Olasın devlet ile taḫt-ı sa‘âdetde muḳîm
Sebze-zâr üstine her dem getürür bâd-ı ṣabâ
Ḫâk-i pâyüñe nis̱âr itmek içün zer ile sîm
Bâġ-ı ‘ömrüñe ḫazân irmeye Ḥaḳ'dan dilerem
‘Īd-i aḍḥâñı mübârek ḳıla Raḥmân u Raḥîm
Bir cihân-gîr-i zamânsın ki irevirmez amân
Lem‘a-i tîġuñ ider dîv-i Nerîmân'ı dü-nîm
Yüzüñe ḳarşu cedel eyleyemez Sâm u Süvâr
Rüstem ü Zâl olamaz erlik ile saña ġarîm
Buldı luṭfuñ es̱erinden bu cihân bâġı behişt
Gördi ḳahruñ ṣıfatın kim dem urur nâr-ı caḥîm
Mihrî üftâdeye raḥmuñla şehâ eyle naẓar
Eyleye saña naẓar ḥaşre dek ol Ḥayy u ‘Alîm
Ṣaḳlasun emn ü emânında seni dâ’im Aḥad
Cân içinde nitekim ola elif ḥarfi ḳadîm

In English

1. At dawn the breeze, like a master teacher, has come again to the rose garden; it has spread the sweet scent of delicacy and adorned everything there is.

2. To show the child of the greenery (the new shoots) how to grow and flourish, it has come and gives lessons without pause in the courtyard of the rose garden.

3. Today it has again made the garden of the world resemble the paradise of Firdaws; with tulips it has turned the rose garden into the gardens of Na'im.

4. The breeze in the garden, with rose, wild rose (nesrin) and sweet-scented herbs, fills the nose of the soul with fragrance at every moment.

5. When the Generous Lord at this moment cast His gaze on the rose garden, through the effect of His grace He made every garden a paradise.

6. See what designs the Eternal Painter (God) has today worked with the hand of His power on every leaf in the rose garden. (Varak means both "leaf" and "page of a book"; the garden is thought of as an ornamented book.)

7. Look at the grace of the Truth: even rotted bone, which had died and gone, has here found life again. (The revival of nature, which looks dead in winter, is described with an allusion to the Qur'anic question "Who will give life to bones when they have rotted?")

8. Every side of the rose garden is again filled with cypresses, upright as a branch; they have given soul and world a pleasant delight and cheer.

9. Here he is, the one who sits today on the throne of felicity, Khan Ahmed; his quality is like the bright sun, his nature gentle.

10. O sovereign, all the people of the world have found ease through your justice; the seven climes (the whole earth) have gained brilliance through your name.

11. If the morning breeze did not bring to the garden something of the scent of your curl, the rose would not be able to give fragrance to the people of the world in the garden.

12. O ruler, longing for your rose-like face and standing in the garden, the nightingale on every tree has become a Kelîm, like Moses on Mount Tur, speaking with God. (Hezâr means both "nightingale" and "thousand"; the couplet can also be understood as "a thousand Kelîms on every tree".)

13. As often as spring comes and gladdens the face of the world, may you remain on the throne of felicity with state.

14. At every moment the morning breeze brings gold and silver over the greenery, to scatter on the dust of your feet. (Yellow and white petals are likened to the gold and silver coins scattered at the feet of sultans.)

15. I ask of the Truth that autumn never reach the garden of your life; may God, the Merciful and Compassionate, make your Feast of Sacrifice blessed.

16. You are such a world-conqueror, one who gives no quarter, that a single gleam of your sword splits the giant of Nerîmân in two. (Nerîmân is one of the famous champions of the Persian epic Shahnameh; the couplet can also be read as "a giant like Nerîmân".)

17. Sâm and Süvâr cannot contend before your face; Rüstem and Zâl cannot rival you in valour. (In three copies "Sâm-ı Süvâr" is written; in this reading the sense is "the horseman Sâm cannot speak before you".)

18. This garden of the world became paradise through the effect of your grace; and whoever sees the quality of your wrath burns and flares like the fire of hell. (The second line can also be understood as "the fire of hell could only draw a breath from your wrath".)

19. O sovereign, look with mercy on the fallen Mihrî, so that God, the Living and All-Knowing, may look on you until the Day of Resurrection.

20. May the One God keep you always in His security and safety, just as the letter alif has been hidden since eternity within the word "cân" (soul). (In Arabic script the letter alif stands in the middle of the word "cân"; alif is also the first letter of the names "Ahad" and "Ahmed".)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a kaside of twenty couplets. The kaside is a long poem written in divan poetry to praise a great person or to celebrate a festival or a season; its first couplet (matla) opens with both lines rhymed, and in the following couplets only the second lines end with the same sound. Here the rhyme is the sound "-îm": nesîm, ta‘lîm, na‘îm, kerîm, kadîm, remîm, halîm, iklîm, şemîm, kelîm, mukîm, sîm, rahîm, dü-nîm, garîm, cahîm, ‘alîm. In the matla this sound is caught with the words "var ne kim". There is no redif. The metre is the aruz pattern "fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilün" of the ramal bahr, a fluent measure often used in divan poetry in both ghazal and kaside.

The kaside is arranged according to the familiar sections of the genre. The first eight couplets are the introduction (nesib), taken up with a description of spring. The line "Ol durur taht-ı sa‘âdetde bugün Hân Ahmed" in the ninth couplet is the girizgâh, the transition from description to praise; here the name of Ahmed is mentioned as the earthly shadow of the power that has revived the garden. The section from the tenth to the eighteenth couplet is the praise (methiye). In the nineteenth couplet the poet mentions her own name and looks for mercy from the memduh; the last couplets are the prayer section. The phrase "‘Îd-i adhâñı mübârek kıla" in the fifteenth couplet shows plainly that the poem was presented as a greeting for the Feast of Sacrifice. The coming together of a description of spring and a festival greeting suggests that the kaside may have been written for a Feast of Sacrifice that fell in spring, but the poem has no record of a year.

The manuscripts give the poem different headings. In Mehmet Arslan's edition the heading is "Kasîde-i Sultân Ahmed". In the Ankara copy (M) it appears as "Kasîde-i Sâmin" (eighth kaside), and in the Ü copy as "Velehu Fî Medhihi Tâbe Serâhu", that is, "Again in praise of him". This heading indicates that in the Ü copy the poem follows another praise written for the same person.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

In the introductory section of the kaside spring is set up as a school scene. The morning breeze is the "üstâd", the teacher; the newly emerging shoots are "tıfl", children; and the courtyard of the garden is the place where lessons are given. That the words üstâd, tıfl, ders and ta‘lîm are chosen from the same field is a clear example of tenasüp. The breeze's giving lessons like a human is personification (teşhis). In the couplets that follow the garden is likened to paradise: Firdaws and Na'im are paradises named in the Qur'an. In the sixth couplet God is called "Nakkâş-ı Kadîm" (the eternal painter); because the word "varak" means both a tree leaf and a page of a book, the garden looks like a book in which every leaf is illuminated.

The phrase "‘azm-i remîm" (rotted bone) in the seventh couplet is an allusion. In the sura Yâ-Sîn of the Qur'an, the unbeliever who asks who will give life to rotted bones is answered that the One who created them the first time will revive them. Mihrî sees the coming to life of nature in spring, which stood as if dead in winter, as a sign of this resurrection. The description of spring thus gains a religious meaning, and this is in harmony with the kaside's having been written for the Feast of Sacrifice.

In the section of praise the familiar conceits of divan poetry are used. In the eleventh couplet it is said that the rose takes its fragrance from Ahmed's curl; since a poetic cause is given in place of the real reason for the rose's scent, this is a hüsn-i ta‘lîl. The twelfth couplet is one of the subtlest inventions of the kaside: through an allusion to the story in which the Prophet Moses spoke with God on Mount Tur through a voice that came from a tree, every tree is likened to Mount Tur and the nightingale singing on every branch to "Kelîm", Moses who speaks with God. That the word "hezâr" means both nightingale and thousand gives the couplet a tevriye. In the fourteenth couplet the yellow and white petals that the morning breeze scatters over the greenery are likened to the gold and silver (nisâr) scattered at the ruler's feet; an image from palace ceremonies is joined with spring. In the eighteenth couplet grace and wrath, paradise and hell are set against each other, making the art of tezat (antithesis).

In the sixteenth and seventeenth couplets the power of the person praised is measured against the heroes of the Persian epic. Mahmut Başaran treats both couplets in his study of the influence of the Shahnameh on the Divan of Mihrî Hatun. Nerîmân is the famous champion who is the grandfather of Rüstem and father of Sâm; Zâl is Sâm's son, and Rüstem is Zâl's son. Mihrî fits this four-generation line of heroes into two couplets and shows Ahmed to be superior to them all. Başaran explains the "Sâm u Süvâr" of the seventeenth couplet as two separate heroes; according to Arslan's manuscript notes, however, the F, M and S copies write "Sâm-ı Süvâr", and in this reading the phrase means "Sâm the horseman". The word "garîm" in the same couplet appears as "karîm" in three copies; in the first reading Rüstem and Zâl cannot be "an adversary" to the person praised, in the second they cannot be "an equal". In both readings the general sense of the couplet does not change.

The last couplet of the kaside closes with a play on letters. In old script the word "cân" is written with the letters cim, alif and nun, that is, the alif stands exactly in the middle of the word. Mihrî, wishing that God protect Ahmed, says "as the alif is hidden within the soul". Alif is the first letter both of the name "Ahad", which expresses God's oneness, and of the name of the praised "Ahmed". Thus the prayer joins in a single letter the name of the one protected and the attribute of the one who protects. In the nineteenth couplet the poet calls herself "üftâde", fallen, which in kasides is the customary phrase by which the poet signals that she expects attention and gifts from the memduh.

Historical Context

For whom the kaside was presented can be understood both from the heading in the edition and from the phrase "Hân Ahmed" in the ninth couplet: the poem was written to Prince Ahmed, son of Bayezid II. According to the introduction to Mehmet Arslan's edition, when his father took the throne in 1481, Ahmed became governor of Amasya in his place and stayed there until 1512, about thirty-one years. Mihrî Hatun was in the assembly of the prince, who gathered poets, scholars and musicians around him, and secured her place in the palace by presenting her poems to him. Arslan notes that of the seventeen kasides in the divan ten were presented to Ahmed, and that nearly all of them were written as greetings for the festivals of Ramadan or Sacrifice. The TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi also includes the same observation by Abdülkadir Karahan. Since the Feast of Sacrifice is named in it, this kaside is one of the clear examples of this group.

That Ahmed is addressed in the poem as "Hân", "şehâ" and "Husrevâ", and that he is said to sit on the "taht-ı sa‘âdet", arises from the ability of kaside language to praise even a prince with the attributes of a ruler. Ahmed never took the throne; his post in Amasya was that of a sanjak governor. The year in which the kaside was presented is recorded neither in the poem nor in the sources.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Mehmet Arslan (ed.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları (Kültür Eserleri Dizisi 576), 2018, Kaside 10, pp. 35-37; introduction pp. 5-6 (Prince Ahmed's literary circle and the presentation of the kasides); manuscript differences, footnotes to pp. 35-37. ekitap.ktb.gov.tr

Academic studies

  • Mahmut Başaran, "Şehnâme'nin Mihrî Hatun Dîvânı'na Etkileri", Avrasya Beşeri Bilim Araştırmaları Dergisi 3/1 (2023), pp. 116-132 (on K10/16 and K10/17).

Books

Online sources