Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Şâhâ dilerse her kişi kim baḫtiyâr ola
Baş ḳosun ayaġuña k'aña baḫtı yâr ola
Bu ḫulḳ bu seḫâvet ü bu luṭf u bu kerem
Kim sende var cihânda daḫi kimde var ola
Göster cihâna gülşen-i ḥüsnüñ ki ḫusrevâ
Gül gibi güle ṣûret-i ‘âlem bahâr ola
Ey ser-firâz nâz ile seyr it ki bûstân
‘Aks-i ruḫuñla ṣaḥn-ı çemen lâle-zâr ola
Sünbül ṣaçuña gül yüzüñe lâle ḫaddüñe
Ger beñzerem dir ise ḳatı şerm-sâr ola
Gül ruḫlaruña kendüzüni ‘arż ḳılmasun
Ḥüsnüñ ḳatında aña daḫi n'i‘tibâr ola
Gül beñzerem ḫadüñe deyü lâf ururdı gör
Geldi ki dest-bûs ide ne vechi var ola
Cânâ cihân demâġını ḫoş müşk-bû ḳılur
Zülfüñ ‘iẕâruñ üzre ḳaçan târ u mâr ola
Yâ Rabb ‘izz ü devlet ile Ḫân Aḥmed'üñ
Bir güni bu cihânda hezârân hezâr ola
Ḥilm ü vaḳâr u luṭf u şefâ‘at didükleri
Bu dehr-i dûn içinde meger sende var ola
Cân levḥasında yazdum ḫaṭṭuñ ḫayâlini
Tâ ḥaşr olınca ṣaḳlaya ol yâdigâr ola
Firdevs bâġınuñ gül-i ḫandânısın çü sen
Bülbüllerüñ şehâ ya niçün ġamda zâr ola
Ger sen semend-i devlete olsañ i şeh süvâr
Rüstem öñüñce bin dil ile ḥâşa-dâr ola
Ḥüsnüñ güni münevver ola ḥaşre dek şehâ
Niteki âsumân u zemîn ber-ḳarâr ola
Bâd-ı ḫazân irişmeye ‘ömrüñ bahârına
Rûy-ı cihân niteki ḫazân u bahâr ola
‘Ömrüñ binâsı muḥkem ola ḥaşre dek şehâ
Baḫtuñ ‘aṣâsı devlet ile pây-dâr ola
Budur du‘âsı şâm u seḥer Mihrî'nüñ şehâ
‘Ömrüñ güni cihânda hezârân-hezâr ola
Dil ‘andelîbi derd ile ḳılsun ḳo nâleler
Çün ḳarşusında sencileyin gül-‘iẕâr ola

In English

1. O sovereign, whoever wishes to be fortunate should lay his head at your feet (rub his face on you and enter your service), so that his fortune may be his friend.

2. This nature, this generosity, this grace and this kindness that are in you: in whom else in the world could they be? (In no one.)

3. O ruler, show the world the rose garden of your beauty, so that the face of the world may laugh like a rose and every side turn to spring.

4. O you of lofty head, walk about with coquettish grace, so that as the reflection of your face falls, the meadow of the garden may become a bed of tulips (the redness of your face striking the grass and turning the place into a field of tulips).

5. If the hyacinth says to your hair, the rose to your face, the tulip to your cheek, "I resemble you", it will be deeply ashamed and its face will flush.

6. Let the rose not presume to present itself to your cheeks; beside your beauty, what worth can it have?

7. Look, the rose used to boast "I resemble your cheek"; now it has come to kiss your hand, and what face has it left? (The rose's opening and coming before the prince is interpreted as its coming, ashamed of its boasting, to kiss his hand; "face" (vech) means both countenance and the boldness to appear before someone without shame.)

8. O beloved, whenever your curls tangle and scatter over your cheek they fill the nose of the world with a fine fragrance of musk.

9. O Lord, may a single day of Khan Ahmed in this world, in glory and fortune, be a thousand thousand days (may his life be very long).

10. Gentleness, dignity, grace and intercession, as they are called, it seems are found in this base world only in you.

11. I wrote the image of the down on your face (which is also "the writing") on the tablet of my soul; may it be kept there until the Day of Resurrection and remain as a memento of you.

12. Since you are the opened, laughing rose of the garden of paradise, O sovereign, why should your nightingales (the poets who praise you, those who love you) go on lamenting in sorrow?

13. O sovereign, if you mount the horse of fortune, even Rüstem would be a servant before you with a thousand hearts. (The word that appears in the edition as "ḥâşa-dâr" seems, in context, to describe the attendant who walks before the ruler's horse carrying the saddle cover; the reading of the word is not certain.)

14. O sovereign, as long as heaven and earth stand in place, may the sun of your beauty stay bright until the Day of Resurrection.

15. As long as autumn and spring follow one another on the face of the world, may the wind of autumn never reach the spring of your life.

16. O sovereign, may the structure of your life be firm until the Day of Resurrection; may the staff of your fortune stand upright and lasting with state.

17. O sovereign, this is Mihrî's prayer, morning and evening: may a day of your life in this world be a thousand thousand.

18. Let the nightingale of the heart go on lamenting in pain, let it lament; for before it stands one with a rose-like cheek such as you (so its lamenting is entirely fitting).

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a kaside of eighteen couplets and is the sixth kaside of the divan in Mehmet Arslan's edition. Its metre is the aruz pattern "Mef'ûlü Fâ'ilâtü Mefâ'îlü Fâ'ilün" of the muzari bahr. The rhyme is the sound "-âr" (baḫtiyâr, bahâr, lâle-zâr, şerm-sâr, yâdigâr, zâr), and the redif is the verb "ola" repeated at the end of all couplets. The kaside is a rather long verse form, written in divan poetry mostly to praise a great person, whose first couplet's two lines and the second lines of the following couplets end with the same rhyme. In large kasides, before turning to praise, spring, a festival or another subject is described; this poem has no such introduction. From the first couplet Mihrî addresses the memduh, the person praised, directly, and after the fourteenth couplet she moves on to the prayer section. The pen name is in the seventeenth couplet, one before the last. The last couplet closes the poem by tying it again to the image of beloved and nightingale.

The poem is found in two manuscripts: the Ankara National Library (M) and Istanbul University (Ü) copies. According to the footnotes of the edition, the metre is faulty in the first line of the eleventh couplet; in the twelfth, thirteenth and sixteenth couplets there are also small differences of wording between the copies (for example in the sixteenth couplet M has "muḥkem" and Ü has "ḳâyim").

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The most striking feature of the kaside is that the praise is built largely on beauty. The prince's generosity, dignity and intercession are mentioned briefly in the second and tenth couplets; the real weight of the poem lies in conceits familiar from the ghazal, such as the rose, hyacinth, tulip, curl and nightingale. The section from the third couplet to the eighth could be read at once as a ghazal. The poet likens the face of the memduh to a rose garden; she says that when that face is shown, the world will laugh like a rose, and that through the reflection of his face the meadow will turn into a field of tulips. The sound play in the third couplet between the noun "gül" (rose) and the verb "güle" (laughs) is a subtlety of the same kind as the pun in the first couplet between "baḫtiyâr" (fortunate) and "baḫtı yâr" (whose fortune is a friend).

The fifth, sixth and seventh couplets work out the same thought in three different ways: if flowers presume to compete with the beloved's face in beauty, they gain nothing but shame. In the fifth couplet the hyacinth corresponds to the hair, the rose to the face and the tulip to the cheek; this is a fine example of tenasüp, the use together of words from the same field. The seventh couplet ends the story of the rose with a witticism: the rose that once boasted "I resemble your cheek" has now come to kiss his hand. The rose's opening and coming before the prince is tied to a poetic cause other than the real one; in divan poetry this is called hüsn-i ta'lil. The word "vech" in "ne vechi var" carries a double meaning approaching tevriye, used for both face and the boldness to do something.

The word "ḫaṭṭ" in the eleventh couplet is also double-edged. In divan poetry the down that newly appears on the beloved's face is called "hat"; the same word means writing. When the poet says she has written the image of this hat "on the tablet of the soul", she draws on the link between tablet and writing. In the twelfth and eighteenth couplets the conceit of rose and nightingale is prominent: the memduh is the rose of the garden of paradise, and those who praise and love him are nightingales. It is common in divan poetry for the poet to liken herself to a nightingale; here it is clear that Mihrî herself is among the nightingales. The reference in the thirteenth couplet to Rüstem, the hero of the Persian epics, is an allusion that brings out heroism and strength: when the prince mounts the "horse of fortune", even Rüstem becomes a servant before him.

In the prayer section the image of the seasons is continued. In the fifteenth couplet it is wished that, as long as autumn and spring follow one another in the world, the autumn wind never touch the spring of the memduh's life; the contrast (tezat) between autumn and spring carries the couplet. In the sixteenth couplet life is likened to a building and fortune to a staff. The prayer "may a day of his be a thousand thousand days", made in the ninth couplet when the prince is named, is repeated in the seventeenth, together with Mihrî's pen name, in almost the same words. This repetition brings out the prayer character of the poem and links the two couplets.

Historical Context

For whom the kaside was written is clear from the ninth couplet: "Yâ Rabb 'izz ü devlet ile Ḫân Aḥmed'üñ / Bir güni bu cihânda hezârân hezâr ola." The one named is Prince Ahmed, son of Bayezid II, who was sanjak governor in Amasya between 1481 and 1512. Mehmet Arslan notes that of the seventeen kasides in the divan, ten were presented to Prince Ahmed, and that most of these were written as greetings for the festivals of Ramadan or Sacrifice. This kaside does not mention a festival; so it is not known whether it was written for a particular festival. There is also no record of which year it was written.

As Arslan describes, Mihrî Hatun first entered the literary circle that formed around the Amasya palace of Bayezid II, and after his accession around that of Prince Ahmed, and she secured her place in this circle by presenting her poems especially to Prince Ahmed. Sehî Bey also records that she gave Prince Ahmed many kasides and ghazals. This kaside is one of the texts that show the side of Mihrî Hatun's life tied to the palace circle in Amasya.

The heading of the kaside varies between copies. In the Ankara copy the poem is called simply "Ḳaṣîde-i Râbi'" (Fourth Kaside). In the Istanbul University copy the heading is "Velehû Fî Medḥihî Ṭâbe S̱erâhu", that is, "Again in praise of him, also his poem; may his earth be sweet". "Ṭâbe s̱erâhu" is a formula of prayer used with the names of those who have died, especially of rulers who have died. In this copy the headings of other kasides presented to Prince Ahmed have the same or similar ("ṭâbe mes̱vâhu") formulas. From this it appears that this copy, or at least its headings, was written after the death of the memduh. The poem itself, however, is full of prayers for the prince's long life, and it is clear that it was presented in his lifetime.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Mehmet Arslan (ed.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları (Kültür Eserleri Dizisi 576), 2018, Kaside 6, pp. 28-30; introduction, pp. 5-7, 12-15. ekitap.ktb.gov.tr

Official sources

  • Sehî Beg, Heşt Bihişt, eds. Hasan İpekten and Günay Kut, T.C. Ministry of Culture and Tourism e-book, entry on Mihrî, pp. 159-160.

Books

  • İsmail E. Erünsal, "Mihrî Hatun", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 30, Istanbul 2020, pp. 37-38. islamansiklopedisi.org.tr
  • "Tâbe", Kâmûs-ı Türkî (Şemseddin Sâmî), online Ottoman dictionary entry: "tâbe serâhu: may his earth be good and pure".

Online sources