Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Vezin: Feʻilātün feʻilātün feʻilātün feʻilün

N’ola maḥsūdumuz olsa bizim Ꜥâlemde ḳadeḥ
Ger leb-i dil-beri būs itmede her demde ḳadeḥ
Ḫūn idüp dīdesini Ꜥāşıḳ-ı mehcūr gibi
Dönmede şevḳ-i leb-i yār ile meclisde ḳadeḥ
Bāde-i vaṣlını nūş itmege besdir leb-i yār
Belki bīgāne olur Ꜥālem-i vuṣlatda ḳadeḥ
Gülşen içre leb-i mey-gūn-ı dil-ārāya bedel
Ne ṣafā olsa gerek olmasa ger elde ḳadeh
Künc-i ġamda bize mirʾāt-ı Sikender gibidir
Mihriyā Ꜥaks-i ruḫ-ı yārı temāşāda ḳadeḥ

In English

1. Since the cup keeps kissing the beloved's lips at every moment, is it any wonder if the thing we envy and are jealous of in this world should be the cup?

2. Like a lover parted from his beloved, the cup has bloodied its eye (its inside is filled with red wine) and goes around the gathering in longing for the beloved's lips. (The passing of the cup from hand to hand among the drinkers is likened to a lover circling his beloved in the pain of separation.)

3. The beloved's lips are enough to drink the wine of union; in the realm of union the cup may even become a stranger, superfluous.

4. In the rose garden, what delight would there be if there were no cup in the hand in place of the wine-coloured lips of the heart-adorning beloved? (When the beloved is absent, the cup takes the place of the beloved's lips.)

5. O Mihrî, in the corner of grief, the cup is for us like Iskender's mirror in gazing at the reflection of the beloved's face.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

That this ghazal belongs to Mihrî Hatun is not certain. The poem is not found in the known manuscripts of Mihrî's divan; it is recorded on folio 47a of the poetry miscellany numbered 43 Va 2871 in the Kütahya Vahid Paşa Provincial Public Library, immediately after the first Mihrî ghazal of the miscellany. Mutlu Muhammet Aktaş, who published the ghazal, states that the twenty ghazals under the pen name Mihrî in the miscellany have a strong likelihood, in language and style, of belonging to the poet, but that no firm judgment can be reached. The compiler and date of the miscellany are unknown; a note evidently added later to its first page describes it as "Selections from Poets of the 15th-18th Centuries", and it also contains poems by poets of later centuries such as Bâkî and Nâbî.

In the miscellany the ghazal is headed "Velehu Berāy-ı Ḳadeḥ". "Velehu" means "this too is his" and indicates that the ghazal belongs to the same poet as the preceding poem; "Berāy-ı Ḳadeḥ" means "for the cup" and shows the subject of the poem. According to Aktaş, headings of this kind in the miscellany are most probably the compiler's work. The ghazal has five couplets and is written in the remel metre, in the pattern "Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilün", a pattern also frequent in Mihrî's divan. The refrain is the word "ḳadeḥ"; the rhyme is built with the suffix "-de/-da" in the words "‘âlemde, demde, meclisde, vuṣlatda, elde, temâşâda". There is no record of for whom the poem was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

All the couplets of the ghazal present the cup of the refrain from a different angle. In the opening couplet the poet envies the cup, because the cup touches the beloved's lips at every moment; an object easily reaches the place the lover cannot. This jealousy is the attitude of the divan lover, who counts everything near the beloved as a rival. In the second couplet the cup is likened to the lover himself: the cup filled with red wine is a lover whose eye is red from weeping blood, and its going around the gathering is its circling in longing for the beloved's lips. Giving the cup human feelings is the art of personification (teşhis).

The third and fourth couplets complete each other. At the moment of union there is no need of the cup, because the beloved's lips are like wine itself, and in the realm of union the cup remains a stranger. When the beloved is absent, however, the only thing that can take the place of the wine-coloured lips is the cup held in the hand in the rose garden. The cup is thus presented as a consolation that stands in for the beloved during separation. There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) between lips and wine, cup and gathering, rose garden and delight.

The closing couplet carries the most striking simile of the ghazal. The lover, left alone in the corner of grief, sees the beloved's reflection in the shining surface of the cup and names the cup "mir'ât-ı Sikender", Iskender's mirror. According to İskender Pala's entry in the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, the âyîne-i İskender is a legendary mirror said to have belonged to Alexander and to have shown even distant ships; it is also known as "âyîne-i âlemnümâ", the mirror that shows the world, and is often mentioned in divan literature. The same entry points to a connection with the magic cup, the câm-ı Cem, attributed to legendary rulers and also to Alexander. In the couplet the cup and the mirror are brought together, and these two legendary objects are fused in a single image: like the mirror that shows far-off things, the cup shows the lover the face of the distant beloved.

Historical Context

Aktaş mentions this couplet in particular among the clues that could support the attribution of the ghazals to Mihrî. In the tezkires (biographical anthologies of poets) it is reported that Mihrî Hatun gave her heart to İskender Çelebi, son of Sinan Paşa, and some couplets in her divan with the Iskender motif are taken as signs of this. According to Âşık Çelebi, Mihrî, on seeing a beauty named Iskender one morning, recited the ghazal beginning "Ḫâbdan açdum gözüm…"; the couplet she recited when accused over Iskender, "Nice İskenderi la‘lüm zülâli / Ṣuya iletdi vü ṣusuz getürdi", is also given in the tezkires. Aktaş cites the likening of the cup to Iskender's mirror in this miscellany ghazal as an example of the same motif. But Iskender's mirror is a frequently cited motif in divan poetry, and the couplet contains no explicit reference to İskender Çelebi. The couplet can therefore be treated as a clue that might be associated with the story, but it does not show that the ghazal was written for İskender Çelebi.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Âşık Çelebi, Meşâ‘irü'ş-Şu‘arâ, ed. Filiz Kılıç, Ankara: Republic of Turkey Ministry of Culture and Tourism e-book, pp. 356-357 (entry on Mihrî).
  • Mehmet Arslan (ed.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: Republic of Turkey Ministry of Culture and Tourism Publications (Cultural Works Series 576), 2018, introduction, pp. 11-12.

Academic studies

  • 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 2 (Kütahya Vahid Paşa Provincial Public Library 43 Va 2871, fol. 47a); study, pp. 109-112.

Books

Online sources