Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Ḫoş dem degül mi mevsim-i faṣl-ı bahâr ‘îd
Ḫurrem degül mi oldı cihân sebze-zâr ‘îd
Her câ müzeyyen oldı şükûfeyle ḳıl naẓar
Ṣaḥn-ı çemende ṭoldı semen lâle-zâr ‘îd
Pür-zînet itdi rûy-ı cihânı zamân yine
Eyler ṣafâ vü ‘ayş ile her murġ-zâr ‘îd
Ṣubḥuñ nesîmi ireli ṣaḥn-ı benefşeye
Oldı cihân demâġı ḳamu müşg-bâr ‘îd
Her gülsitânda lâle vü nesrîn ü yâsemen
Her bir çemende serv ile eyler çenâr ‘îd
Ser-cümle döndi cennete ṣaḥrâ yüzi tamâm
Mâ-i ma‘în aḳıdup ider kûhsâr ‘îd
Gül ṭal‘atında gördi meger la‘l ġoncasın
Her bir nihâl-i sebzede eyler hezâr ‘îd
Ḥüsni münevver itse cihânı ‘aceb midür
Burc-ı şerefde eyledi ol şehriyâr ‘îd
Ol kâm-yâb Şâh Süleymân'a ṣıdḳ ile
Kim ola k'itmeye dil ü cânı nis̱âr ‘îd
Gördi cemâli Ka‘be'sinüñ nûrını ‘ayân
Maḳṣûda irdi itdi ṣaġîr ü kibâr ‘îd
Keşf eyleyeli ḥüsni żiyâsını ‘âleme
Ṭoldı sürûr u ‘işret ile her diyâr ‘îd
Zülfiyle ruḫları yeter ol ḫusrevüñ hemân
El-ḳıṣṣa ḫalḳ-ı ‘âleme leyl ü nehâr ‘îd
Her cân ki vaṣlı ‘îdine ḳurbân olur anuñ
Bulur sa‘âdeti vü olur baḫtiyâr ‘îd
Olsun hemîşe ‘îd ile nev-rûz her güni
Görsün cihânda devlet ile ṣad-hezâr ‘îd
Ol meh-liḳâyı gördi nice ḫande olmasun
Yıllarla çekdi görmek içün intiẓâr ‘îd
Yâ Rab ḳıl anı taḫt-ı sa‘âdetde ber-ḳarâr
Bâḳî degülse neyleyelüm bî-ḳarâr ‘îd
Her dem devâm-ı devletine Mihrî ḳıl du‘â
Tâ ḥaşr olınca eyleye ol tâc-dâr ‘îd
Olsun İlâhi sâye-i devletde müstedâm
İtsün müdâm o sâye-i Perverdigâr ‘îd

In English

1. The season of spring has come and the festival has come; is it not a pleasant time? The world has turned into a lush green meadow; is it not glad with the joy of the festival?

2. See, everywhere is adorned with flowers. The middle of the meadow is filled with fields of jasmine and tulip; everywhere it is festival.

3. Time has once again adorned the face of the world from end to end. Every meadow where the birds sing celebrates the festival with joy and merriment.

4. When the morning breeze reached the violet garden, the nose of the world was filled from end to end with the scent of musk; the festival has come.

5. In every rose garden there are tulips, wild roses (nesrin) and jasmine; on every lawn the cypress and the plane tree keep festival.

6. The face of the countryside has turned wholly into paradise. The mountains, letting streams flow, keep festival. (Mâ-i ma'în is the Qur'anic expression "flowing, clear water", used in the description of paradise.)

7. The nightingale must have seen the red bud on the face of the rose, for it keeps festival on the branch of every green sapling. (Hezâr means both "nightingale" and "thousand"; the line can also be understood as "a thousand festivals are kept on every sapling".)

8. Is it any wonder if his beauty lights up the world? That sovereign has kept festival in the sign of exaltation. (In old astronomy the place where the sun is strongest is called the "sign of exaltation", and the sun enters this sign at the beginning of spring. The sovereign is likened to the sun.)

9. To that Shah Süleyman, who has attained his desire, who would not wish to scatter heart and soul sincerely as a festival gift?

10. The people plainly saw the light of his Kaaba in his face; great and small all reached their desire and kept festival. (The beloved's face is likened to the Kaaba, toward which people turn.)

11. Since he showed the light of his beauty to the world, every land has been filled with joy and merriment; everywhere it is festival.

12. That sovereign's hair and cheeks are enough; in short, for the people of the world night and day alike are festival. (The black hair corresponds to the night, the bright cheek to the day.)

13. Every soul that sacrifices itself on the festival of union with him attains happiness, becomes fortunate and keeps festival.

14. May every day of his be always a festival and a Nevruz. May he see hundreds of thousands of festivals in this world, in state and good fortune.

15. After seeing that moon-faced one, how could the festival not laugh? It waited years to be able to see him. (With the reading "geçdi" in the Ü manuscript: it passed in waiting years on end to see him.)

16. O Lord, make him lasting on the throne of felicity. If he is not lasting, what are we to do with an unsteady, passing festival?

17. O Mihrî, pray at every moment for the continuation of his state; may that crowned one keep festival until the Day of Judgement.

18. O God, may he always remain in the shade of that state; may he keep festival always in the shadow of the Creator.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The fifteenth kaside of Mihrî Hatun's divan has eighteen couplets and is among the shorter kasides in the divan. It is written in the muzâri' metre of aruz (quantitative metre), in the pattern "Mef'ûlü Fâ'ilâtü Mefâ'îlü Fâ'ilün". The rhyme is the sound "-âr" (bahâr, sebze-zâr, lâle-zâr, murġ-zâr, müşg-bâr), and the word "'îd" (festival), repeated at the end of every couplet, is the redif (refrain word). In kasides and ghazals the redif is often a suffix or a short verb; that a noun standing alone was chosen here ties the whole poem to the idea of the festival and forces every couplet to end with this word. For this reason "'îd" works in some couplets as subject, in others as object or as an exclamation.

The heading in the edition is "Kasîde-i Sultân Süleymân". The poem is found in the manuscripts of the Ankara National Library (M, 41b) and of Istanbul University (Ü, 22a). In the Ü copy the third couplet is missing and the heading is "Velehu Fî Medhihi Tâbe Serâhu" ("Also by her, in praise of him; may his earth be pleasant"). According to Arslan's notes, the Ü copy mostly gives the other kasides, too, under this heading. The kaside opens with a description of spring (1-7), moves in the eighth couplet to the person praised, and in the ninth couplet names him as "Şâh Süleymân". From the sixteenth couplet on is the prayer section, and the pen name (mahlas) appears in the seventeenth couplet.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The subject of the poem is the festival falling on the same days as spring. The first seven couplets draw a picture of spring: the lawn, jasmine, tulip, the morning breeze reaching the violet garden, cypress and plane tree, the waters flowing from the mountains and the nightingale that has seen the rosebud. In these couplets plants and mountains are made to keep festival; through personification (teşhis), nature joins in the joy of the festival like human beings. Gülşen Kaya cites the fifth couplet as an example of those places in the divan where flower names are brought together to make a "colourful description of spring". The word "hezâr" in the seventh couplet is a double entendre (tevriye): it means both "nightingale" and "thousand"; with the second meaning the line also says that thousands of festivals are kept on every sapling.

The eighth couplet is the transitional couplet (girizgâh) that moves from the description of spring to praise, and it is skilfully built. In old astronomy the sun enters the sign of Aries at the beginning of spring, and this sign is its "exaltation" house; Nevruz also falls on these days. By saying that the sovereign "kept festival in the sign of exaltation", Mihrî makes him equal to the sun; thus the sun that brings the spring and the prince who beautifies the festival are joined in the same image. The prayer in the fourteenth couplet, "may every day of his be a festival and a Nevruz", continues this link.

In the praise section religious images come to the fore. In the tenth couplet the face of the person praised is likened to the Kaaba, and it is said that "great and small all reached their goal"; the ideas of pilgrimage and festival come side by side. In the thirteenth couplet the phrase "to be sacrificed on the festival of union with him" recalls the Kurban bayram; either the poet wrote for a Kurban bayram, or she used sacrifice in the sense of the lover sacrificing himself, and the text does not settle this. In the twelfth couplet the correspondence of hair and cheek to night and day is an example of leff ü neşr, frequent in divan poetry: first two things are listed, then two things corresponding to them are enumerated. As for the phrase "sâye-i Perverdigâr" (shadow of the Creator) in the last couplet, Kaya explains it by the concept of "zıllullah", based on the hadith meaning "the sultan is God's shadow on earth".

The fifteenth couplet is the most personal line of the kaside: the festival has waited years to see that moon-faced one. This statement may point to the person praised being seen after a long separation or having come to a new post; but that is a guess resting only on the language of the poem. The thirteenth kaside, which Mihrî presented to Şehzade Ahmed, is also written in the same metre and opens with the line "Çün rûz-ı 'îd mevsim-i faṣl-ı bahârdur", that is, with the meeting of festival and spring. This closeness between the two poems shows that the poet reused the same ground for different patrons.

Historical Context

The sources differ over whom the kaside was written for. The heading of the M manuscript in the edition and the phrase "Şâh Süleymân" in the ninth couplet show that the person praised bore the name Süleyman. Gülşen Kaya, relying on the study section of Arslan's 2007 edition, counts the 14th, 15th and 16th kasides as written to Şehzade Süleyman, the son of Şehzade Ahmed; Sabiha Gemici, too, in her 1990 thesis, states that one of the kasides in the Ü manuscript was presented to Şehzade Süleyman. By contrast, Gönül Ayan, in her article published in 1989, quotes the first two couplets and introduces this kaside as "a kaside presented to Şehzade Ahmed". Ayan's assessment may have arisen from the heading "Velehu Fî Medhihi" in the Ü manuscript linking it to the patron of the previous kaside; the name in the ninth couplet, however, strengthens the view that it was written for Süleyman.

According to some sources, Şehzade Ahmed's son Süleyman served as sanjak governor (sanjak-bey) between 1509 and 1513, crossed to Egypt after the struggle for the throne in 1513 and died there. The prayer "Tâbe Serâhu" (may his earth be pleasant) in the Ü manuscript is used for someone who has died; this suggests that the heading was added after the death of the person praised. But since the same prayer appears in the headings of other kasides in Ü as well, whom it is directed at is not certain. For which festival and in which year the kaside 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, p. 45-46, Kaside 15 (M 41b, Ü 22a) and footnotes on manuscript variants. ekitap.ktb.gov.tr

Academic studies

  • Gülşen Kaya, Mihrî Hâtun Divânı'nın Tahlili, master's thesis, Fırat Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Elazığ 2010, p. 58-61 and kaside examples. openaccess.firat.edu.tr
  • Sabiha Gemici, Mihrî Hatun Divanı: Karşılaştırmalı Metin, Cümle Yapısı ve Cümle Türleri, doctoral thesis, Uludağ Üniversitesi, Balıkesir 1990, p. 346-349, 428.

Books

  • Gönül Ayan, "Mihri Hatun ve Şiirleri", Erdem V/13 (1989), p. 23-30.
  • İsmail E. Erünsal, "Mihrî Hatun", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 30, Ankara 2020, p. 37-38. islamansiklopedisi.org.tr

Other sources

  • "Şehzade Ahmed (son of Bayezid II)", Wikipedia (based on Nevin Zeynep Yelçe, The Making of Sultan Süleyman, 2009). en.wikipedia.org

Online sources