Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Vezin: Mefā’īlün mefā’īlün mefā’īlün mefā’īlün

Lebin būs itdirirken ġayrıya her bār ṣad efsūs
Bize rām olmadı ancaḳ o gül-ruḫsār ṣad efsūs
Dehān u gerden ü rūyun murādum būs idi emān
MüsāꜤid olmadı baḫtım gibi dil-dār ṣad efsūs
Mülāyim olsa dil-berim müsāꜤid olsa baḫt-ı dūn
Yine māniꜤ olurlar vuṣlata aġyār ṣad efsūs
Sözünde bāꜤis olmaz vaꜤde incāz eylemez aṣlā
Bu bāġ-ı Ꜥālem içre her gül-i pür-ḫār ṣad efsūs
Nigāh-ı ḫışmına ḳāniꜤ olurken Mihriyā yārıñ
Yine ġayra olursa ġamze-i mekkār ṣad efsūs

In English

1. While you let others kiss your lips every time, a hundred pities; that rose-cheeked one never softened to us, never yielded, a hundred pities.

2. My desire was to kiss her mouth, her neck and her face, mercy; but the beloved did not smile on me any more than my fortune did, a hundred pities.

3. Even if my beloved were gentle and my base fortune helped me, the rivals would still stand in the way of union, a hundred pities.

4. Her word has no foundation, she never keeps a promise she has made; every thorny rose in this garden of the world is like this, a hundred pities. (The beloved is likened to a rose that cannot be smelled without being pricked by its thorns.)

5. O Mihrî, while you are content with even the beloved's angry look, if that treacherous glance then turns to another, a hundred pities. (The lover is satisfied with even one harsh glance from the beloved; but if that glance too goes to another, nothing is left in his hands.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This ghazal is a text not found in Mihrî Hatun's divan, published from folio 57b of the poetry miscellany numbered 43 Va 2871 in the Kütahya Vahid Paşa Provincial Public Library. In his article of 2023 Mutlu Muhammet Aktaş introduced the twenty ghazals under the pen name Mihrî in the miscellany, counted it a strong possibility that they belong to Mihrî Hatun, but stressed that no firm judgment can be reached. Since this ghazal is one of those twenty, its attribution is not certain. It is not known for whom it was written.

The ghazal has five couplets and is written in the hezec metre, in the pattern "mefā’īlün mefā’īlün mefā’īlün mefā’īlün". The refrain is the Persian "ṣad efsūs" (a hundred pities, a hundred alases), and the rhyme is the "-âr" sound: gül-ruḫsār, dil-dār, aġyār, pür-ḫār, mekkār. The long, two-word refrain recurs at the end of every couplet like a sigh and sets the lamenting tone of the ghazal.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal is the lament of a lover who cannot reach the beloved. The beloved lets others kiss her lips but does not soften toward the lover; the lover's fortune too has turned its face from him as the beloved has; even if the beloved softened, rivals would step in between; the beloved's word cannot be trusted; and finally even the angry look the lover would settle for goes to another. The couplets are arranged so that each describes a somewhat heavier deprivation than the one before.

In the second couplet the beloved is likened to the lover's fortune (baḫt): both have been unfavourable, "müsāʻid", that is, not helpful. In the third couplet the same word is repeated, and this time fortune is described as "dūn", base, contemptible. This repetition shows the lover's obstacles as a chain: the beloved, fortune and the rivals. The rivals (aġyār) are named openly here. Gülşen Kaya notes that in Mihrî's divan the rival is treated as one who stands in the way of the beloved and is likened to the thorn beside the rose. The expression "gül-i pür-ḫār" (rose full of thorns) in the fourth couplet carries this conception to the beloved herself: like every rose in the garden of the world, the beloved has a wounding side along with her beauty and does not keep her word.

In the last couplet two kinds of look are set against each other: "nigāh-ı ḫışm" (angry glance) and "ġamze-i mekkār" (treacherous side-glance). Kaya shows that in Mihrî's divan the ghamze, the beloved's languid glance, is thought of as an arrow that wounds the lover. In this ghazal, however, the lover is content even with that wounding glance; the real pain is that this glance too turns to another. The pen name is used in the form "Mihriyā", as the poet's address to herself. As Aktaş points out, the miscellany ghazals stand out for giving very little room to Arabic and Persian compounds and for the plainness of their language; in this ghazal too, apart from the refrain, the sentences are close to colloquial Turkish. Aktaş also records that no religious or mystical elements are found in the miscellany ghazals; this ghazal too is entirely a poem of human love.

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 9 (Kütahya Vahid Paşa Provincial Public Library 43 Va 2871, fol. 57b), p. 117; evaluation pp. 110-112, 124.
  • Gülşen Kaya, Mihrî Hâtun Divânı'nın Tahlili, master's thesis, Fırat University Institute of Social Sciences, Elazığ 2010, pp. 134, 159-160. openaccess.firat.edu.tr

Online sources