Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Vezin: Feʻilātün feʻilātün feʻilātün feʻilün

Lāle-ḫad ġonce-dehen dil-ber-i zībāsın sen
Rūy-ı alıñla şehā bir gül-i ḥamrāsın sen
Eyleseñ rūyuñ ile ḫānemi rūşen-i muꜤcib
Şeb-i yeldāda hemān bir meh-i ġarrāsın sen
Ol ḳadar oldı ḫayāliñle gözüm ālūde
Ḫ˘āba varsam da yine baña hüveydāsın sen
Bezm-i ġam içre eyā sāḳī-i gül-çihre müdām
Teşne baḫş eylemede Ꜥāşıḳa ṣaḥbāsın sen
Nāzeninim nice dil ide ferāġat sende
Fikr-i ḫāliñ ideli naḳş-ı süveydāsın sen

In English

1. Tulip-cheeked, rosebud-mouthed, you are a beautiful beloved; O my king, with your rosy face you are a red rose.

2. If with your face you were to light up my house marvellously, you would be a radiant moon shining on the longest night of the year. ("Şeb-i yeldā" is the longest and darkest night of winter.)

3. My eye has become so filled and clouded with your image that even if I fall asleep, you still appear plainly before me.

4. O rose-faced cupbearer, in the gathering of grief you are the wine ceaselessly offered to the thirsty lover.

5. My delicate one, how could the heart give you up? Since it thought of your mole, you are the design drawn on its dark spot. ("Süveydā" is the black point believed to lie in the middle of the heart; the beloved's black mole is likened to a pattern worked there.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The ghazal is not in Mihrî Hatun's divan. It was found on folio 58b of the poetry miscellany numbered 43 Va 2871 in the Kütahya Vahid Paşa Provincial Public Library and was published by Mutlu Muhammet Aktaş in 2023 as the tenth of the twenty ghazals under the pen name Mihrî in the miscellany. Aktaş regards it as a strong possibility that these ghazals belong to Mihrî Hatun, but says that no firm judgment can be reached. In this ghazal there is a further difficulty: the pen name does not occur in the text. What ties the poem to Mihrî is the heading "Mihrī-i Rüsvā" written above it in the miscellany and its place among the Mihrî ghazals. Its attribution is therefore even less certain than that of the other ghazals in the miscellany. It is not known for whom it was written.

The ghazal has five couplets and is written in the remel metre, in the pattern "feʻilātün feʻilātün feʻilātün feʻilün". The refrain is "-sın sen" and the rhyme is the "-â" sound: zībā, ḥamrā, ġarrā, hüveydā, ṣaḥbā, süveydā. On the same folio of the miscellany, under the same heading, there is one more ghazal (Miscellany Ghazal 11). That ghazal too is in the same metre, with the same refrain and rhyme; its first line, however, does not fit the rhyme, and its last couplet bears the pen name Mihrî. That this ghazal, which has no pen name, and the following ghazal, which has no proper opening couplet, may be parts of a single ghazal split in two in the miscellany is an observation arising from the text itself. Aktaş's article contains no assessment on this; the ghazals are given in the edition under separate numbers.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal is a praise poem from start to finish, that is, a poem in praise of the beloved. Each couplet likens the beloved to something else and, with the refrain "sen" (you), addresses her directly. In the first couplet the beloved's cheek is likened to the tulip, her mouth to the rosebud and her face to the red rose. Aktaş notes that in the miscellany ghazals, as in Mihrî Hatun's divan, beauty is thought of as a rose garden, and that floral similes are frequently used: rosebud for the mouth, rose for the face, tulip for the down on the cheek. This couplet is a collective example of those similes. The address to the beloved as "şehā" (O king) also recalls the beloved-as-king conception of divan poetry.

The second and third couplets are built on light and sight. The beloved's face is a moon that lights the house, and moreover a moon shining on the longest night of the year. The moon seen on the night when darkness is deepest expresses union in the midst of absence. In the third couplet the beloved's image has so filled the eye that even sleep cannot hide her from view; there is an antithesis between "ḫ˘āb" (sleep) and "hüveydā" (plainly visible).

In the fourth couplet the scene moves to the gathering. Here the gathering is not a revel but a gathering of grief (bezm-i ġam). Gülşen Kaya notes that in Mihrî's divan the cupbearer is generally treated as a person addressed, and that the gathering is mentioned together with wine, cup and beloved. In this ghazal the beloved is both the rose-faced cupbearer and the wine (ṣaḥbā) offered to the thirsty lover; the one who serves and what is served are united in the same person.

In the last couplet a connection is made between the beloved's mole (ḫāl) and the dark spot (süveydā) in the middle of the heart. Both are small black points; as Kaya shows, in Mihrî's divan too the mole is the subject of similes of point and grain through its shape and black colour. When the heart is absorbed in thought of the mole, the beloved becomes a design worked into its deepest place, and the heart cannot give her up. The ghazal ends at this couplet without a pen name; this is the place that suggests the possibility of a split mentioned above.

Bibliography

  • Mutlu Muhammet Aktaş, "Mihrî Hatun'un Yayımlanmamış Gazelleri", Hikmet-Akademik Edebiyat Dergisi 9/18 (Spring 2023), pp. 105-126, doi:10.28981/hikmet.1200789; ghazal 10 (Kütahya Vahid Paşa Provincial Public Library 43 Va 2871, fol. 58b), pp. 117-118; evaluation pp. 110-112.
  • Gülşen Kaya, Mihrî Hâtun Divânı'nın Tahlili, master's thesis, Fırat University Institute of Social Sciences, Elazığ 2010, pp. 84-85, 102, 106, 169-170. openaccess.firat.edu.tr

Online sources