Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Vezin: Feʻilātün feʻilātün feʻilātün feʻilün

Kimde var ol ruḫı o çeşm[i] o ḫāl ü ebruv[ān]
Kimde var ol dehen [ü] şīve daḫı ol ḫoş-bū
Hele ḫūbān-ı cihān içre müsellemsin sen
Ele āyīne alup kendiñi gör ey ḫoş-gū
Eylediñ Ꜥazm-i sefer çünki Ḥicāz u Şāma
Cümle ḫūbān-ı Sitānbūla didik biz yā hū
Günde biñ kerre fiġān eyler iken yanında
Bilmedi Ꜥaşḳ-ı dil-i zārımı ḥayf ol dil-cū
Göricek Mihrī-i ġam-ḫ˘ārı ser-i rāhında
İctināb eylemede ṣanki hemān bir āhū

In English

1. Who has that cheek, that eye, that beauty mark and those brows? Who else has that mouth, that manner and that sweet scent?

2. Truly, among the beauties of the world your supremacy is accepted by all; O sweet-spoken one, take a mirror in your hand and look at yourself.

3. When you set out on a journey toward Hejaz and Damascus, we said "yâ hû" to all the beauties of Istanbul. (The couplet can be read in two ways: with the call "yâ hû" a farewell may have been said to the beauties of Istanbul, a renunciation of them; or it may mean calling out in vain, searching for the beloved among them.)

4. While I lamented a thousand times a day beside her, alas, that heart-seeking beauty did not understand the love of my wailing heart.

5. On seeing grieving Mihrî at the head of her path, she shuns her, just like a shy gazelle.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The ghazal is not in Mihrî Hatun's divan. It appears on folio 51b of the poetry miscellany numbered 43 Va 2871 in the Kütahya Vahid Paşa Provincial Public Library, among twenty ghazals under the pen name Mihrî, and was published by Mutlu Muhammet Aktaş in 2023. Aktaş regards it as a strong possibility that these ghazals belong to Mihrî Hatun, but also states that his comparisons do not suffice for a firm judgment. The ghazal should therefore be evaluated as a poem whose attribution to Mihrî Hatun is not settled.

The five-couplet ghazal is written in the remel metre, in the pattern "feʻilātün feʻilātün feʻilātün feʻilün". The rhyme is the long "-û" sound, and most of the rhyme words are Persian compound adjectives: ḫoş-bū (sweet-scented), ḫoş-gū (sweet-spoken), dil-cū (heart-seeking), to which are added the call "yā hū" and "āhū" (gazelle). There is no refrain. Because this part of the miscellany is worn, in the first couplet a few suffixes and words are completed in square brackets in the edition. The first line of the opening couplet is completed as "ebruv[ān]"; since the rhyme scheme of the ghazal requires this line too to end in "-û", it is also possible that the corrupt place was originally "ebrū" (brow). This is an observation arising from the text itself; the reading in the edition has not been changed.

Historical Context

The third couplet of the ghazal is cited in Aktaş's article as evidence bearing on Mihrî Hatun's life. Most sources agree that Mihrî was from Amasya and spent her life there. Mehmet Arslan too is of the opinion that the poet did not leave Amasya; he regards Mehmed Zihnî's counting her among the "learned women of Istanbul" as a mistake, but also notes that some couplets in the divan contain expressions suggesting that she lived in Istanbul and that she left Amasya and remained abroad. Aktaş says that the mention of Istanbul in this couplet of the miscellany strengthens the idea that Mihrî Hatun may have stayed in Istanbul, at least for a time.

Two points need to be kept in mind in judging this interpretation. First, the attribution of the ghazal to Mihrî Hatun is not certain; the couplet can therefore be used for the poet's life only with caution. Second, Aktaş gives the couplet in the introduction of his article as "Eyledük Ꜥazm-i sefer" (we set out on the journey) and in the text section as "Eylediñ Ꜥazm-i sefer" (you set out on the journey). According to the reading in the text section, it is the beloved who goes to Hejaz and Damascus; the poet remains in Istanbul and turns her back on the beauties there. According to the reading in the introduction, it is the poet herself who sets out. In both readings it is clear that the speaker has a connection with the beauties of Istanbul, but what the couplet says about the poet's life changes with the reading.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal opens by enumerating the beloved's beauty. In the first couplet cheek, eye, mole, brow, mouth, manner and scent are lined up one after another, and each is declared unique with the question "kimde var" (who has it). This is an example of a sequence that recalls the elements of beauty one by one, and of tenasüp. In the second couplet a mirror is held up to the beloved: to prove her beauty she need look not at another but at her own face. Gülşen Kaya notes that in Mihrî's divan the beloved's face is likened to a mirror in respect of its brightness and its reflecting of manifestations; here the mirror is in the beloved's hand, for her to contemplate her own beauty.

The third couplet widens the ghazal's geography. Hejaz and Damascus are set against Istanbul as, respectively, far away, and near, crowded, a city of beauties. The call "yā hū" lends the couplet a dervish air; it may express giving up the beauties of the world, or calling to a distance.

In the last couplet the beloved is likened to a gazelle that shuns grieving Mihrî when she sees her at the head of her path. According to Kaya, in Mihrî's divan the beloved is likened to the gazelle chiefly for the beauty of her eyes; in this ghazal, however, the basis of the likeness is the gazelle's shyness and flight. The word "ictināb" (avoidance, shunning) completes this skittishness. The form of the pen name, "Mihrī-i ġam-ḫ˘ār" (Mihrî who grieves), is an expression Aktaş also identifies as a compiler's heading in the same miscellany.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Mehmet Arslan (ed.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: Republic of Turkey Ministry of Culture and Tourism Publications (Cultural Works Series 576), 2018, introduction pp. 7-9.

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 6 (Kütahya Vahid Paşa Provincial Public Library 43 Va 2871, fol. 51b), pp. 115-116; Istanbul discussion p. 108; evaluation pp. 110-112.
  • Gülşen Kaya, Mihrî Hâtun Divânı'nın Tahlili, master's thesis, Fırat University Institute of Social Sciences, Elazığ 2010, pp. 125, 135. openaccess.firat.edu.tr

Online sources