Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mef‘ûlü Fâ‘ilâtü Mefâ‘îlü Fâ‘ilün

Çün rûz-ı ‘îd mevsim-i faṣl-ı bahârdur
‘İşret demi feraḥ güni ḫoş rûzgârdur
Ṣubḥuñ nesîmi ireli her câya ḳıl naẓar
Rengîn çiçekler ile ḳamu lâle-zârdur
Ḳudret eliyle gör yine reyḥânî ḫaṭları
Yazdı yeşil varaḳlara k'ol Kird-gâr'dur
Ḫıżr-mis̱âl olsa cihân ṭañ mı sebze-pûş
Āb-ı ḥayât irgüren ebr-i bahârdur
Enfâs-ı bâd irişdi meger gülsitâna kim
Ṣaḥn-ı benefşe şâm u seḥer müşg-bârdur
Ḥâl-i zebân ile derilüp Ḥaḳḳ'ı ẕikr ider
Gülşenler içre murġ-ı hezârân hezârdur
Ferş-i zeberced üstine ḳuruldı ḫaymeler
Gûyâ kimisi zer kimi sîmden ḥiṣârdur
Envâ‘-ı zînet ile cihân olsa ṭañ mı zeyn
‘Arż eyleyen cemâlini çün şehriyârdur
Sulṭân Aḥmed ol ki Ferîdûn-ı dehrdür
Mülk-i cihânda devlet ile tâc-dârdur
Olsa ‘aceb mi ḫalḳ ile güneş gibi ‘ayân
Ol pâdişeh ki sâye-i Perverdigâr'dur
Mis̱lini görmedi döneli bir daḫi felek
Bunca ki mâh u sâl ve leyl ü nehârdur
Bâġ-ı İrem'de ruḫları gül la‘li ġoncadur
Ṣaḥn-ı çemende ḳâmeti serv ü çenârdur
Dil murġı bend-i zülfine ṭolaşsa vechi var
Zîrâ kemend-i dâmına cânlar şikârdur
Her cân şehâ ki olmaya ḳurbânı ḥüsnüñüñ
Taḥḳîḳ belki âḫir anuñ yeri nârdur
Ey âfitâb ‘aks-i ruḫuñla güneş iñen
Faḫr itmesün cihânda k'aña müste‘ârdur
Sen Müşterî-cenâba şehâ gelmesün zevâl
Niteki âfitâb semâda süvârdur
Mâdem ki bu sipihr-i felek eylemez ḳarâr
Mâdem ki bu zemîn ü zamân ber-ḳarârdur
Ol sen hemîşe taḫt-ı sa‘âdetde muḥterem
Gelsün ṭapuña şol ki ṣaġîr ü kibârdur
Eyyâm-ı devletüñde cihân begleri gelüp
Ṭursun ṭapuñda ḫıdmet içün her ki vardur
Medḥ eylemek şehâ seni Mihrî muḥâldür
Meddâḥ saña ancılayın ṣad-hezârdur

In English

1. Since the festival day falls in the season of spring, it is now the time for revelry, a day of joy and a pleasant moment in the year.

2. The morning breeze has begun to blow; look in every direction: the whole land has turned into a tulip garden full of colourful flowers.

3. See how God, with the hand of His power, has once again written rayhani lines on the green leaves, saying: "He is the Creator." (Rayhani is both the name of a style of calligraphy and an adjective meaning "of the basil plant"; varak means both "leaf" and "page". The greening plants are imagined as a book written by God.)

4. Is it any wonder if the world, like Khidr, clothes itself in green? What brings it the water of life (the water of immortality) is the spring cloud. (Khidr is the figure said to have drunk the water of life and to wear green; spring rain is likened to that water because it gives life to the earth.)

5. The breath of the wind must have reached the rose garden, for the violet bed scatters musk at dusk and at dawn.

6. In the rose gardens thousands of nightingales gather and remember God in the language of their state. (Hezar means both "thousand" and "nightingale"; the phrase hezaran hezar at the end of the line plays on these two meanings.)

7. Tents have been pitched on a carpet of emerald; it is as though some were fortresses of gold and others of silver. (The couplet can be read in two ways: the yellow and white flowers may be likened to tents set up on the green grass, or the poet may be describing real tents pitched in the meadow for the festival and the spring celebrations.)

8. Is it any wonder if the world is adorned with every kind of ornament? For it is the sovereign who displays its beauty.

9. That Sultan Ahmed is the Feridun of the age, and in the realm of the world he is a crowned ruler through fortune and good fortune. (Feridun is an ancient king of Iranian legend, remembered for his justice.)

10. Is it any wonder if that sovereign, the shadow of God, appears among the people as plainly as the sun?

11. Since the heavens began to turn, through all these months and years, nights and days, they have not seen his like again.

12. In the garden of Irem his cheeks are roses and his ruby lip is a bud; on the lawn his stature is cypress and plane tree. (The garden of Irem is a legendary garden likened to paradise.)

13. If the bird of the heart wanders into the snare of his locks, it has reason to, for souls become prey to the lasso of his trap.

14. O king, any soul that is not sacrificed to your beauty is, truly, one whose final place is the fire.

15. O you with a face like the sun, let the sun not boast too much of the reflection of your cheek, for that light is only lent to it. (In Old Turkish inen means "very, much". The sun's light is imagined as taken from the face of the person praised.)

16. O king, exalted and auspicious as Jupiter, may no decline ever come to you, just as the sun rides on in the sky. (Zeval means both "decline, end" and the sun's descent toward the west after noon.)

17. As long as this revolving sphere does not come to rest, as long as this earth and this time remain in place,

18. may you always be honoured on the throne of felicity, and may all, small and great, come to your door.

19. In the days of your good fortune may the lords of the world come and may everyone who exists stand at your door in service.

20. O king, it is impossible for Mihrî to praise you; for you have hundreds of thousands of such praise-poets.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The thirteenth poem in the kaside section of the divan is a kaside of 20 couplets. It is written in the muzari' metre of aruz (quantitative metre), in the pattern "Mef'ûlü Fâ'ilâtü Mefâ'îlü Fâ'ilün". Mehmet Arslan, who prepared the edition, notes in a footnote that the metre is faulty in the first hemistich of the fourth couplet. The redif (refrain word) is the suffix "-dur", preceded by rhymes ending in the sound "-âr", such as "bahâr, rûzgâr, lâle-zâr, Kird-gâr". The rhyme "bahâr" is repeated in the first and fourth couplets, and "hezâr" in the sixth and the twentieth ("sad-hezâr"). The two hemistichs of the first couplet rhyme with each other, so the kaside opens with a matla.

The kaside follows the order of the genre in a brief and orderly way. The first seven couplets form the introduction, describing the festival falling in spring, the gardens filling with flowers, the nightingales remembering God and the tents pitched in the meadow. The eighth couplet makes the transition to praise by attributing the adornment of the world to "the sovereign who displays its beauty"; such a transitional couplet is called a girizgâh. Couplets 9 to 16 form the praise section, and the name of Sultan Ahmed is given openly in the ninth. Couplets 17 to 19 form the prayer section; the seventeenth does not complete itself, and its meaning is finished by the eighteenth. In the last couplet the poet mentions her pen name (mahlas) and closes modestly by saying that praising her patron is beyond her power. The fahriye section, in which the poet praises her own art and which is common in kasides, is absent from this poem.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

In the introduction the description of spring is combined with a religious sensibility. In the third couplet the green leaves are imagined as pages on which God writes rayhani script with the hand of His power. Since rayhani is both the name of a fine style of calligraphy and an adjective relating to the basil plant, the word calls up the worlds of writing and of plants together; the link built through the words "line", "to write" and "leaf/page" is a good example of tenasüp (congruence of images), the art of using words that belong to the same field side by side. In the sixth couplet the song of the nightingales is read as a form of remembrance of God (zikir), and the two meanings of "hezâr", "nightingale" and "thousand", are placed side by side at the end of the line. The fourth couplet is an allusion to Khidr: just as Khidr wears green and drank the water of life, the world has been clothed in green by the spring rain and has found life anew. The art of pointing briefly to a well-known story or person is called telmih.

In the praise section Mihrî resorts to the stock comparisons that the kaside tradition uses in praising a ruler. The prince is "the Feridun of the age" (couplet 9) and "the shadow of God" (couplet 10). A contrast is hidden in this last couplet: the person regarded as God's shadow shines among the people like the sun. This phrasing, which brings shadow and sun together, rests on the figure of antithesis (tezat). In couplets 12 to 14 the praise suddenly slides into the language of the ghazal (gazel); the prince's cheek is a rose, his lip a bud, his stature a cypress and a plane tree, and his locks a snare in which hearts wander. The manner of praising a ruler as though he were a beloved is also seen in the twelfth kaside, which was presented to the same prince. In couplets 15 and 16 the heavenly bodies come into play. The sun should not boast, since it has "borrowed" its light from the face of the person praised. Müşteri, that is Jupiter, is regarded in old astrology as the most auspicious planet; the prince is likened to this planet and a prayer is made that no "zeval" come to him. Since the word zeval also describes the sun's descent after noon, the couplet forms a coherent whole with the words for sky and sun.

In the prayer section the contrasts continue: the ever-turning sphere is set against the earth and time that stay in place (couplet 17), and small against great (couplet 18). The statement in the last couplet, "praising you is impossible, you have hundreds of thousands of praise-poets", is a pattern of humility found at the close of kasides.

Historical Context

For whom the kaside was written is clear from the text: the name "Sultân Ahmed" appears in the ninth couplet, and the heading in the edition is "Velehû Fî Medhihî Enârallâhu Burhânehû" (Also by her, in praise of him; may God illuminate his proof). The person praised is Şehzade Ahmed, who served as sanjak governor (sanjak-bey) in Amasya from 1481 to 1512. The poem appears in only two of the four manuscripts on which the edition is based, the M and Ü copies; in the M copy it bears the heading "Kasîde-i İhdâ Aşere" (the eleventh kaside) and comes directly after the twelfth kaside. According to Mehmet Arslan, ten of the seventeen kasides in the divan were presented to Şehzade Ahmed, and nearly all of them were written as greetings for Ramazan or Kurban bayram. This kaside, too, opens in its very first hemistich with the words "rûz-ı ıyd", that is, the day of the festival.

Kasides of this kind, presented to a person of standing on the occasion of a festival, are called "ıydiyye". With such poems poets celebrated the festival of their patrons and received a reward (caize) in return. Iydiyyes generally consist of an introduction describing the festival, a praise section and a prayer section; depending on the season, there are also examples in which spring and the festival are treated together. Mihrî's kaside follows this order: it praises the coincidence of the festival and spring as a time for joy and celebration, and then moves on to the prince. The poem does not say explicitly for which festival it was written. The expression "to be sacrificed" in the fourteenth couplet is a familiar idiom of the language of love and cannot by itself be taken as a sign of the Kurban bayram. The year of composition is also unknown. According to Arslan, poets such as Âfitâbî, Münîrî, Makâmî and Zeyneb Hatun were present at Şehzade Ahmed's palace in Amasya; the existence of a crowded circle of poets praising the prince gives the phrase "hundreds of thousands of praise-poets" in the last couplet a real basis.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Mehmet Arslan (ed.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları (Kültür Eserleri Dizisi 576), 2018, Kasîdeler 13, p. 41-43 (manuscripts: M 39a, Ü 22b); introduction, p. 5-6. ekitap.ktb.gov.tr

Books