Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Vezin: Mefāʻīlün mefāʻīlün mefāʻīlün mefāʻīlün

Gülistān (….)ġonce-fem bir gül-Ꜥiẕārım yoḳ
Benim bülbül gibi ḫār-ı elemden āh u zārım yoḳ
Ne ġam ola ḫazān-āver bu bāġ-ı ḫār-perver kim
Benim zīrā içinde bir dıraḫt-ı mīve varım yoḳ
Kitāb-ı hecr-i yārı şerḥ iderdim n’edeyim ey dil
Ḳalem almaġa deste bende aṣlā iḳtidārım yoḳ
Şikāyet eyler idim ben ġubārınca [o] cānāndan
Dem-i vuṣlatda ammā bir muvāfaḳ rūzgārım yoḳ
Niçün āsūde seyl-i eşküm eyler cüst [u] cū Mihrī
Ḫırām eyler çemende serv-i ḫoş-reftār-ı yārım [yoḳ]

In English

1. In the rose garden I have no beloved with rosebud mouth and rose-petal cheek ... (one word of the line is illegible); and so I have no sighing and wailing from the thorn of sorrow like the nightingale. (The couplet can be read in two ways: the lover does not have even the nightingale's lot, or, having no rose, he does not know the pain the nightingale suffers from the thorn. The illegible word prevents the meaning from being fixed.)

2. What grief can this autumn-bringing, thorn-nurturing garden give me? For in it I have no fruit-bearing tree. (The garden is the world; one who has nothing in it, having nothing to lose, does not fear autumn.)

3. O heart, I would have commented on the book of the beloved's parting, expounding it at length, but what can I do, I have no strength at all to take a pen in hand.

4. I would have complained of that beloved as much as the dust of resentment and sorrow within me; but at the moment of union I have no wind blowing in my favour, that is, no helping fortune.

5. Mihrî, why does the flood of my tears keep searching and wandering without rest? Because my beloved, the cypress-tall one of graceful gait, does not stroll in the meadow. (The word "āsūde" [calm, at rest] in the first line makes the meaning difficult; the couplet may also be speaking of the flood of tears flowing calmly and searching for the beloved's cypress. The refrain "yok" in the second line has been completed in the edition.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This ghazal is not in Mihrî Hatun's divan. It was published in 2023 by Mutlu Muhammet Aktaş from folio 57b of the poetry miscellany numbered 43 Va 2871 in the Kütahya Vahid Paşa Provincial Public Library. Aktaş sees it as a strong possibility that the twenty ghazals under the pen name Mihrî in the miscellany belong to Mihrî Hatun, but writes plainly that no firm judgment can be reached on this. With this reservation the ghazal is a poem attributed to Mihrî Hatun. It is not known for whom it was written.

The ghazal has five couplets and is written in the hezec metre, in the pattern "mefāʻīlün mefāʻīlün mefāʻīlün mefāʻīlün". According to Aktaş, five of the ghazals in the miscellany are in this pattern, and the pattern is also used in Mihrî's divan. The rhyme is the "-âr" sound (ʻiẕār, zār, var, iḳtidār, rūzgār, yār) and the refrain is "-ım yoḳ". Aktaş records that the word "yok" is also used as a refrain in Mihrî Hatun's divan, as one of the features shared between the miscellany ghazals and the divan. In the first couplet there is a place that could not be read in the miscellany; the refrain of the last couplet has been completed in the edition with square brackets.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

Each couplet of the ghazal is built on an absence: the lover has no rose-cheeked beloved, no fruit-bearing tree, no strength to hold a pen, no favourable wind, and no beloved swaying in the meadow. The negation of the refrain turns the ghazal into a list of deprivations. At the same time this list builds a chain of images that begins with the rose garden and extends to the book, the pen and the wind.

The first two couplets are woven with the image of the rose garden. Rose, rosebud, nightingale and thorn (ḫār) are used in divan poetry for the beloved, her mouth, the lover and the rival; Gülşen Kaya notes that in Mihrî's divan the thorn stands in for the rival and is found beside the rose. Aktaş too says that the tendency to describe the beloved's beauty as a rose garden is common to both the divan and the miscellany ghazals. In the second couplet the garden becomes the world through the epithets "ḫazān-āver" (autumn-bringing) and "ḫār-perver" (thorn-nurturing). One who has no fruit tree has no fear of autumn either; this is a bitter utterance in which deprivation is turned into a kind of ease.

In the third and fourth couplets the images move into the world of writing. Parting is a book, and the lover wishes to comment on it (şerh), explaining it line by line, but has no strength to hold a pen. Kaya shows that in Mihrî's divan beauty and love are often likened to a book. The word "ġubār" in the fourth couplet works with two meanings: resentment accumulated in the heart, and dust. Once dust is mentioned, the word "rūzgār" in the second line also gains two senses: both the wind that carries the dust, and fortune, time. Thus the lover says that she has no favourable wind, that is, no helping fortune, to carry the dust of her complaint to the beloved. This is a congruence of images (tenasüp) resting on a double entendre (tevriye).

In the last couplet the tears become a flood and wander as if searching for something (cüst ü cū). According to Kaya, in Mihrî's divan the growing of the cypress beside waters gives rise to the motif of its being watered by the lover's tears. In this ghazal too what the flood of tears seeks is the cypress-tall beloved who should be swaying in the meadow; but that cypress is not in its place. This familiar relation between water and cypress shows the beloved's absence as the lack of a garden scene.

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 7 (Kütahya Vahid Paşa Provincial Public Library 43 Va 2871, fol. 57b), p. 116; 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. 122-123, 134, 181. openaccess.firat.edu.tr

Online sources