Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Vezin: Feʻilātün feʻilātün feʻilātün feʻilün

Sīneye çekmek olur mı seni tenhā bilmem
Yoḫsa ḥasretle olur mı dil-i şeydā bilmem
Öyle telḫ itdi meẕāḳ-ı dili zehr-i ḥasret
Şimdi keyfiyyet-i cām-ı mey-i ḥamrā bilmem
Vuṣlatıñla baña Ꜥīd olsa da baḫş itmezsin
Nice olur ḥāl-i dil-zārımı cānā bilmem
Maḥrem-i vaṣlıñ olan her n’ola (….)
Benden aꜤlā mıdır ey dil-ber-i zībā bilmem
Cānımı saña fedā itmiş iken sulṭānım
Dergehiñde yine benden daḫı ednā bilmem
Hem idersin beni dīvāne yine hem dirsin
Mihrī-i zār gibi Ꜥāşıḳ-ı rüsvā bilmem

In English

1. Whether it will be possible to draw you to my breast when we are alone, I do not know; or whether this maddened heart will live on in longing alone, that too I do not know.

2. The poison of longing has so embittered the palate of my heart that I no longer know what the pleasure of a cup of red wine is.

3. Your union would be a festival (Eid) for me, yet you do not grant it; O beloved, what will become of my lamenting heart, I do not know. (The couplet can be read in two ways: "even if a festival comes, you will not grant me union," or "though union with you would be a festival for me, you do not grant it." In both, union is made equal to the joy of a festival.)

4. All those near your union, held to be the confidants of union ... (the end of the first line is illegible in the miscellany); O fair beloved, whether they are higher than I, I do not know.

5. My sultan, though I have sacrificed my life to you, I know of no one lower than myself at your gate. (That is, although he has given his life, the lowest of the servants at the beloved's door is still himself.)

6. On the one hand you make me mad, and on the other you say, "I know of no lover as disgraced as wretched Mihrî."

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This ghazal is not in Mihrî Hatun's divan. It was found among the twenty ghazals under the pen name Mihrî on folio 51b of the poetry miscellany numbered 43 Va 2871 in the Kütahya Vahid Paşa Provincial Public Library, and was first published by Mutlu Muhammet Aktaş in 2023. The compiler and the date of copying of the miscellany are not known; the poems can mostly be recognised only by their pen name. Aktaş regards it as a strong possibility, because of similarities of language, style and metre, that these ghazals belong to Mihrî Hatun, but states plainly that no firm judgment can be reached. The poem should therefore be read here as a text whose attribution to Mihrî Hatun is not settled. There is no information about for whom or on what occasion it was written.

The ghazal has six couplets and is written in the remel metre, in the pattern "feʻilātün feʻilātün feʻilātün feʻilün". By Aktaş's finding, fifteen of the twenty ghazals of the miscellany are in this pattern, and the pattern is also used in Mihrî's divan. The refrain is "bilmem" and the rhyme is the long "-â" sound: tenhā, şeydā, ḥamrā, cānā, zībā, ednā, rüsvā. The ghazal, the most common verse form of divan poetry, is a short love poem whose first couplet rhymes within itself, whose later couplets have second lines that follow this rhyme, and whose last couplet contains the poet's pen name; this ghazal conforms to the form in these respects. The end of the first line of the fourth couplet is illegible in the miscellany and is left in the edition with the mark "(….)".

In the miscellany the ghazal is headed "Mihrī-i Şeydā" (mad Mihrî). Aktaş thinks that headings in the miscellany such as "Mihrī-i Rüsvā" and "Mihrī-i Ġam-ḫ˘ār" were written by the compiler rather than the poet, according to the subject of the ghazal. This heading too seems to be taken from the expression "dil-i şeydā" in the first couplet.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

All the couplets of the ghazal are built on a state of bewilderment and uncertainty ending in the refrain "bilmem". The lover does not know whether he will be alone with the beloved, when union will come, or whether those near the beloved are higher than he. Though the refrain is the same word in every couplet, its sense shifts slightly: in the second couplet it comes near to "I have forgotten the taste", and in the fifth to "I do not recognise anyone lower than myself".

In the second couplet longing is likened to a poison, and this poison has embittered the palate (meẕāḳ) of the heart. Among the words "telḫ" (bitter), "meẕāḳ" (sense of taste), "zehr" (poison), "cām" (cup) and "mey" (wine) there is a congruence of images (tenasüp). The redness of the wine is carried into the rhyme by the adjective "ḥamrā". In the third couplet union is likened to a festival; an example of the themes of the rose, the rosebud, union and separation that Aktaş finds shared with Mihrî's divan is seen here as well.

In the fifth couplet the beloved is addressed as "sulṭānım" (my sultan), and the beloved's door is imagined as the threshold of a ruler's palace (dergeh). The lover has sacrificed his life to this sultan, yet is still the lowest of the servants at the door. According to Gülşen Kaya's finding, in Mihrî's divan too the beloved is likened to a shah and the lover to a servant (bende) awaiting his favour, and the threshold of the beloved who is a shah is often mentioned; the address to the court and the sultan in the miscellany ghazal accords with this conception.

The last couplet is the most striking place in the ghazal. This time the refrain is spoken not by the lover but by the beloved: on the one hand the beloved drives Mihrî mad, and on the other blames her, saying "I know of no lover as disgraced as Mihrî." The words "dīvāne" and "rüsvā" complete each other; the lover who is mad is also disgraced in public. That the pen name occurs in the form "Mihrī-i zār" (wailing, wretched Mihrî) inside another's speech lets the poet place herself on stage as a lover seen from outside. Its language is in the line of plainness that Aktaş notes for Mihrî's poems; Arabic and Persian compounds are few and the sentences are close to the spoken language.

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 4 (Kütahya Vahid Paşa Provincial Public Library 43 Va 2871, fol. 51b), p. 114; evaluation pp. 110-112, 123-124.
  • Gülşen Kaya, Mihrî Hâtun Divânı'nın Tahlili, master's thesis, Fırat University Institute of Social Sciences, Elazığ 2010, pp. 84-85. openaccess.firat.edu.tr

Online sources