Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Çünki gösterdi cihâna ruḫlarından yâr gül
Eyledi rûy-ı zemîn eṭrâfını envâr gül
Ṭaġıdup sünbüllerin bâġ-ı cihânuñ ḫoş ṣabâ
Virdi ezhâra revâyiḥ eyledi iẓhâr gül
Ḳudretinden gör ki ṣâni‘ nice gösterdi ‘ayân
Ḫâkden berg-i semen lâle şecerden ḫâr gül
Döşedi çünkim zümürrüdden bisâṭını çemen
Gûşına ṭaḳındı şeb-nemden dür-i şeh-vâr gül
Nev-bahâruñ leẕẕetin bulmaḳ dilerseñ bâġa gel
Ḳıl temâşâ nergis ü nesrîn çemen ruḫsâr gül
Yine hengâm-ı çemendür gülşeni seyr eyle gel
Her ṭaraf serv ü semen her gûşesi gülzâr gül
Na‘ra urduḳça seḥer murġı meger te’s̱îr ider
Ġonca güler serv ṣalar başını oynar gül
Şâḫ-ı serv üzre çıḳup bülbül oḳur şi‘r-i laṭîf
Ḥüsnüñ ebyâtın meger kim eyledi eş‘âr gül
Ṭurma nâlân ol ruḫı şevḳinde miskîn ‘andelîb
‘Ādetidür çünkim itmek bülbülini zâr gül
Ruḫlaruñla ḫaddüñ ü çeşmüñ görelden ḫusrevâ
Nergis ü lâle semenden eyler istifsâr gül
Meclis-i ṣaḥn-ı çemende dâmeninden dem-be-dem
Maḳdemine sen şehüñ yâḳût ider îs̱âr gül
Şâh Sulṭân Aḥmed'üñ devrânıdur bezminde gör
Lâle sâḳî ġonca bâde oldı ḫıdmet-kâr gül
Bûy-ı luṭfuñdan bulup virür cihân bâġına bû
Rengi rûyuñdan alup merġûb olur her bâr gül
Ḫûb oḳur ‘aşḳuñ maḳâmâtın nevâda râstî
‘Andelîbe ḫoşça ta‘lîm eylemiş edvâr gül
Yañılup çün ruḫlaruña beñzerem dimiş meger
Sözinüñ bildi ḫaṭâsın itdi istiġfâr gül
Çeşmüñi görmez meger nergis k'olupdur bî-baṣar
Ḥüsnüñe ḳılup naẓar oldı ulü'l-ebṣâr gül
Yazmaġa ḫaddüñ berâtın gör ġubâr-ı ḫaṭṭ ile
‘Ārıż-ı sûsende çekmiş ḥall ile pergâr gül
Gül yüzüñ bâġ-ı cihâna ‘arż olaldan ḫusrevâ
Ẓâhir oldı ṣanki nûr-ı Aḥmed-i Muḫtâr gül
Gerçi eyyâmında nevrûzuñ çemen sulṭânıdur
Lîk faḫr ider k'ola bezmüñde ḫıdmet-kâr gül
Ḥall olunmaz gördi ‘aşḳuñ müşkilâtından sebaḳ
Ṣafḥa-i ḥüsnüñden ebced başladı tekrâr gül
Ġonca ḫâmûş oldı ġayretden dehânuñ göreli
Ruḫlaruñ gördi ḫacâletden güler nâ-çâr gül
Gülşen-i ḥüsnüñ şehâ besdür gerekmez cenneti
Gerçi kim her gûşesinde nice yüz biñ var gül
Leblerüñe beñzerem didügiçün bâd-ı ṣabâ
Ġoncanuñ çâk ideli aġzın ḳatı ḳorḳar gül
Zîneti ḥüsnüñ gülistânında ögrenmiş meger
Baġlamış bâġ-ı cihânda gör ne ḫoş eṭvâr gül
Devleti bâġında Mihrî ḥamdü-lillâh bir şehüñ
Serv-ḳaddi sâyesindesin ne ġam her bâr gül
Nice kim ola şükûfeyle müzeyyen nev-bahâr
Nice kim bâġ-ı cihânda açıla her bâr gül
Nev-bahârı ḥüsnüñüñ ter tâze olsun tâ ebed
Nice kim ola çemen iḳlîmine serdâr gül
‘Īdüñi itsün mübârek ol Kerîm-i Lâ-yezâl
Geldügince nev-bahâr olduḳça bu gül-zâr gül

In English

1. When the beloved showed roses from her cheeks to the world, the rose too filled every corner of the face of the earth with light.

2. The pleasant morning wind (saba) scattered the hyacinths of the garden of the world and gave scents to the flowers; the rose too showed itself and opened.

3. See what the Creator has shown by His power: from the earth He brought forth the jasmine leaf and the tulip, from the tree the thorn and the rose.

4. When the meadow spread its carpet of emerald on the ground, the rose fastened to its ear large, precious pearls made of dew.

5. If you wish to taste the pleasure of the new spring, come to the garden; look upon the narcissus, the wild rose (nesrin), the meadow and the rose-cheeked rose.

6. It is again the season of the meadow, come and stroll through the rose garden; on every side cypress and jasmine, every corner a rose garden, a rose.

7. As the bird of dawn (the nightingale) cries out, it seems to take effect: the bud laughs, the cypress shakes its head, the rose dances.

8. The nightingale climbs onto the branch of the cypress and recites a fine, graceful poem; evidently it is the rose that has set the couplets of beauty into verse.

9. O poor nightingale, do not go on lamenting in longing for that cheek; for it is the rose's habit to make its own nightingale weep.

10. O ruler, since the rose saw your cheeks, your face and your eye, it has been asking the narcissus, the tulip and the jasmine about them. (Here the poet pairs the beloved's eye, cheek and face with these three flowers: the eye with the narcissus, the red cheek with the tulip, the white face with the jasmine.)

11. In the gathering in the meadow's courtyard, the rose scatters rubies from its skirt without pause at the coming of you, the shah. (Red rose petals are likened to the rubies scattered on the path of sultans.)

12. It is the age of Shah Sultan Ahmed; look at his gathering: the tulip has become the cupbearer, the bud the wine, and the rose the servant.

13. The rose takes scent from the fragrance of your grace and gives scent to the garden of the world; it takes its colour from your face and is admired every time.

14. The rose recites the stations of love beautifully in the Nevâ mode (or in the Râst mode, as the case may be), and it has taught the nightingale the rhythmic cycles (edvâr) well. (Nevâ and Râst are the names of two musical modes; "nevâ" also means "voice, melody", and "râstî" means "truly".)

15. The rose evidently erred and said "I resemble her cheeks"; then it realised its words were wrong and asked forgiveness.

16. The narcissus must not see your eye, for it is blind; the rose, because it has looked on your beauty, has become one of "those with insight". ("Ulü'l-ebsâr", those with insight, is an expression taken from the Qur'an.)

17. See how the rose, to write the berat of your cheek with the dust of the down, has ruled lines in gold leaf on the cheek of the iris. (Here the beauty's face is thought of as a page of a decree; "hat" means both writing and the fine down newly grown on the face; gilding and ruling are terms taken from the art of illumination.)

18. O ruler, since your rose-like face appeared to the garden of the world, the rose has come forth as if it were the light of Ahmed the Chosen (the Prophet Muhammad). (That the name of the Prophet and that of the prince are the same gives the couplet a second meaning.)

19. Although in the days of Nevruz the rose is the sultan of the meadow, it boasts of being a servant in your gathering.

20. Seeing that it could not solve the insoluble difficulties of your love, the rose started again at the "ebced", the alphabet, from the page of your beauty. (Like the first lesson of a child new to school, it set about learning from the beginning.)

21. The bud has fallen silent from jealousy since it saw your mouth; the rose, seeing your cheeks, laughs helplessly from shame. (The bud's being closed is read as silence, the rose's opening as laughter.)

22. O shah, the rose garden of your beauty is enough, there is no need for paradise; though in every corner of it there are hundreds of thousands of roses. (The couplet can be read in two ways: if "it" refers to paradise, it means "even if there are hundreds of thousands of roses in paradise, your beauty is enough"; if it refers to the rose garden of beauty, the sense is "in every corner of that garden there are already hundreds of thousands of roses".)

23. Because the bud said "I resemble her lips", the east wind tore open the bud's mouth; since then the rose has been very afraid. (The bud's opening and becoming a rose is tied to this punishment.)

24. The rose evidently learned adornment from the rose garden of your beauty; see what pleasing manners it has taken on in the garden of the world.

25. O Mihrî, praise be to God, you are in the shadow of a shah with a cypress-like stature in the garden of state; what sorrow have you, laugh always. (The redif "gül" here is not the flower but the imperative of the verb "gülmek", to laugh.)

26. As long as spring is adorned with blossoms, as long as roses open every time in the garden of the world,

27. as long as the rose is the commander of the realm of the meadow, may the spring of your beauty remain fresh and alive for ever.

28. May God, immortal and generous, make your festival blessed, as long as spring comes and this rose garden is full of roses.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a kaside of 28 couplets, which stands twelfth in the kasides section of the Divan of Mihrî Hatun. In divan poetry the kaside is a verse form written to praise a great person or to treat a religious subject, generally long and divided into set sections. The couplets are written in the ramal bahr of aruz in the pattern "Fâ'ilâtün Fâ'ilâtün Fâ'ilâtün Fâ'ilün". At the end of every couplet the redif "gül" is repeated, and before it come rhymes ending in the sound "-âr", such as "yâr, envâr, ızhâr, hâr, şeh-vâr". Since in the first couplet both lines end with the same rhyme and redif, the opening of the kaside is a matla couplet as in ghazals. To make the same word the redif twenty-eight times in a long poem puts on the poet the burden of putting the rose in a new situation in every couplet. Mihrî bears this burden by making the rose in one couplet a servant, in another a pupil, in another a sinner who repents. In places the same rhyme word recurs ("hıdmet-kâr" in couplets 12 and 19, "bâr" in couplets 13, 25 and 26), a looseness that can be seen in long kasides.

The kaside follows the familiar order of the genre. The first eleven couplets are the introduction (nesib), taken up with a description of spring and the rose; the garden, east wind, nightingale, cypress and flowers are described in this part. Kasides with such introductions in which spring is described are called "bahâriyye". In the twelfth couplet, with the mention of the name of Sultan Ahmed, the poem moves on to praise; this transitional couplet is called the girizgâh. The section of praise (13-24) deals with the prince's beauty more than his generosity or campaigns, and is built throughout on comparison with the rose. In couplet 25 the poet mentions her own pen name, and the last three couplets are the prayer section. That the last couplet of the prayer says "may He make your festival blessed" shows that the poem was written as a festival greeting.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The whole design of the poem rests on a contest set up between the rose and the beauty of the person praised. In divan poetry the rose is the best-known symbol of the beloved's cheek and of beauty; the nightingale is her lover, the bud her lip, the narcissus her eye, the cypress her stature. In using this ready material Mihrî makes the rose lose in most couplets. The rose repents because it said it resembled the prince's cheek (couplet 15), boasts of being a servant in his gathering (couplet 19), and, unable to solve the difficulties of love, becomes like a schoolchild starting the alphabet again (couplet 20). Because the bud presumed the same claim, the east wind tore its mouth open, and the rose learned from this (couplet 23). In these couplets hüsn-i talil, the art of finding a poetic cause for a natural event, is plainly visible: the opening of the bud is read as a punishment, and the rose's staying open as laughing from shame. The flowers' speaking and repenting, and the bud, cypress and rose dancing in joy (couplet 7), are examples of teşhis, personification, the art of giving human characteristics to non-human beings.

One of the striking features of the kaside is the plays built on double meanings of words. In couplet 14 the words "makâmât", "nevâ", "râstî" and "edvâr" are musical terms; Nevâ and Râst are names of modes, and edvâr is the name given to books describing the rhythmic cycles of music. But "nevâ" also means "melody", and "râstî" means "truth, truly". The art of making a word suggest both a near and a distant meaning is called tevriye, and bringing together words of the same field is called tenasüp; this couplet contains both. A similar thing is done in couplet 17 through the arts of writing and the book: the words "berât" (decree), "hat" (both writing and the down on the face), "gubâr" (both dust and a fine type of script), "hall" (gilding) and "pergâr" (ruler) turn the face into an ornamented document. In couplet 10 the eye, cheek and face are named, followed by the narcissus, tulip and jasmine; this is the art of leff ü neşr, which first mentions several things and then lists those that correspond to them.

Two couplets also carry a religious layer. The phrase "ulü'l-ebsâr" in couplet 16 is the Qur'anic expression meaning "those with insight"; the narcissus, held to be blind, is compared with the rose, which by seeing the prince's beauty has become "one of those who see". In couplet 18 the rose comes forth like "the light of Ahmed-i Muhtâr". Ahmed is one of the names of the Prophet Muhammad; that the prince praised is also called Ahmed turns the couplet into a statement that points both to the Prophet and to the memduh. In couplet 25 the redif divides in two within itself: "gül", which is a flower throughout the poem, here becomes a command addressed to the poet and takes the meaning "What sorrow have you, laugh always."

Historical Context

The kaside is found in all four manuscripts on which the edition rests and bears the heading "Kasîde-i Sultân Ahmed" in the critical text; in couplet 12 the name "Şâh Sultân Ahmed" also appears plainly. The person praised is Prince Ahmed, son of Bayezid II, who served as sanjak governor in Amasya from 1481 to 1512. In the M copy in Ankara the heading is "Kasîde-i Âşir" (tenth kaside), and in the Ü copy "Velehû Fî Medhihî" (again in his praise); this last heading shows that the poem follows another kaside written for the same person. According to Mehmet Arslan, who prepared the edition, ten of the seventeen kasides of the divan were presented to Prince Ahmed, and nearly all of them are in the nature of greetings for Ramadan or Sacrifice festivals. Abdülkadir Karahan likewise notes that almost all the kasides were presented to this prince on the occasion of festivals.

Kasides written as festival greetings are called "ıydiyye" in divan literature. Poets would celebrate the festival of the great persons whose clients they were with a verse greeting and receive a gift in return. These poems generally begin with an introduction describing the festival or the season, continue with praise and end with prayer; Mihrî's kaside follows this order. Joining a festival and spring in the same poem is also a known course in the tradition. The kaside does not say which festival it was written for and gives no date; so the year of composition cannot be determined. Although "nevruz" is mentioned in couplet 19, the last couplet is plainly directed at a religious festival.

It is possible to consider couplet 14, which is woven from musical terms, together with the tastes of the prince praised. Arslan relates that Prince Ahmed was fond of poetry and music, that he kept in his palace the musician Zeynelâbidin, who had come from Iran, on a salary, and that the poet and composer Makâmî was also in this circle. That Mihrî, in a poem written for this gathering, makes a witticism with the names of modes shows that she counted on her listeners' knowing this language. It is also notable that the kaside is found in the Ayasofya 3974 copy in the Süleymaniye Library; according to İsmail Erünsal, this copy, which bears the seal of Bayezid II at its end, must be the divan that the poet sent to the sultan in 1508. Thus a festival kaside presented to the prince is also within the divan that reached his father.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Mehmet Arslan (ed.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları (Kültür Eserleri Dizisi 576), 2018, Kasîdeler 12, pp. 39-41 (copies: F 30b, M 37b, S 32b, Ü 23a); introduction, pp. 5-6. ekitap.ktb.gov.tr

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