Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilün

Ol cihân gülzârınuñ ra‘nâ ġazel-ḫânı dürüst
Ḫoş tamâm itmiş bu beyti içre dîvânı dürüst
Ḫaṭt-ı reyḥân kim ṭolanmışdur gülistânı dürüst
Hâledür kim devr idüpdür mâh-ı tâbânı dürüst
Cân ile ḳıldum temâşâ rûy-ı cânânı dürüst
Ṣâni‘-i ḳudret ki naḳş itmiş gülistânı dürüst
Ṣafḥa-i ḫaddinde yazmış ḫaṭṭ-ı reyḥânı dürüst
Hâledür kim devr idüpdür mâh-ı tâbânı dürüst
Ḳâmeti cân gülşeninde serv ü ‘ar‘ar baġlamış
Ḥüsninüñ şemsi cihân bâġına enver baġlamış
Ruḫlarında kâkül-i müşgîni ‘anber baġlamış
Hâledür kim devr idüpdür mâh-ı tâbânı dürüst
Ḳaşları ḳavs-i felekdür ṣûreti bedr-i ḳamer
Gün cemâlidür cihân rûyına viren nûr u fer
Ḳaplamışdur dilberüñ gûyâ miyânını kemer
Hâledür kim devr idüpdür mâh-ı tâbânı dürüst
Cem‘ olup bir bezme gelmişler nice cânâneler
Ḥalḳa ḳurmuş murġ-ı câna zülfi dökmüş dâneler
Şem‘-i ruḫsârına ol meh-rûlaruñ pervâneler
Hâledür kim devr idüpdür mâh-ı tâbânı dürüst
Devr ider câm-ı şarâbı sâḳi-i meh-pâreler
Nûş ider ‘aşḳı meyinden ‘âşıḳ-ı bî-çâreler
Ol mehi ḳılmış iḥâṭa göz açup seyyâreler
Hâledür kim devr idüpdür mâh-ı tâbânı dürüst
Cân alur çeşmi dili yaġmâ ḳılur ḥükmi revân
Lîk ḳılsañ bir naẓar ḥüsni baġışlar câna cân
Dir gören anuñ girîbânıyla gerdânın hemân
Hâledür kim devr idüpdür mâh-ı tâbânı dürüst
Şehr-i Amâsiyye'de bir ḫûb u ra‘nâ gül-‘iẕâr
Her ṭarafda cân u dilden ṣad-hezâr ‘uşşâḳı var
Çevresinde dâyire çekmişdür anuñ kûh-sâr
Hâledür kim devr idüpdür mâh-ı tâbânı dürüst
Ṭâli‘uñ sa‘d oldı Mihrî yandı baḫtuñ aḫteri
Başuña ṭoġdı ġam-ı ẓulmetde devlet ḫâveri
Ol melek-manẓar ḳamer-çihreyle çarḫuñ çenberi
Hâledür kim devr idüpdür mâh-ı tâbânı dürüst

In English

1. The fine ghazal-singer of that rose garden of the world has completed this couplet in his divan flawlessly and with grace: "The basil-like down of the cheek has encircled the rose garden entire; it is a halo that has surrounded the radiant moon entire."

2. I gazed on the beloved's face with all my soul and to my heart's content; the Artist of Power (the Creator) has drawn the rose garden flawlessly and written the basil-script (the basil-like down) neatly on the page of her cheek; it is a halo that has surrounded the radiant moon entire.

3. Her stature has made cypress and juniper stand in the garden of the soul; the sun of her beauty has lit the orchard of the world; she has tied her musk-scented locks to her cheeks like ambergris; it is a halo that has surrounded the radiant moon entire.

4. Her brows are the bow of the heavens and her face the full moon; her countenance is the sun that gives light and radiance to the face of the world; a belt seems to have wrapped itself around the beloved's waist; it is a halo that has surrounded the radiant moon entire.

5. Many beloveds have gathered and come to one assembly; (the beloved) has laid a ring-trap for the bird of the soul and scattered her tresses like grains of bait; moths (have gathered) around the candle of the cheeks of those moon-faced ones; it is a halo that has surrounded the radiant moon entire.

6. Cupbearers fair as pieces of the moon pass the cup of wine around; helpless lovers drink from the wine of love; the planets have opened their eyes and ringed that moon about; it is a halo that has surrounded the radiant moon entire.

7. Her eye takes lives, her heart plunders, her command is law; yet if she gives one glance, her beauty grants a life for a life; whoever sees her collar and her neck says at once: it is a halo that has surrounded the radiant moon entire.

8. In the city of Amasya there is a beautiful, graceful, rose-cheeked one; on every side she has hundreds of thousands of lovers, heart and soul; the mountains have drawn a circle around her; it is a halo that has surrounded the radiant moon entire.

9. Your fortune turned auspicious, Mihrî, the star of your luck has blazed; in the darkness of grief the sun of good fortune has risen over your head; with that angel-faced, moon-countenanced beloved, the circle of the sky is a halo that has surrounded the radiant moon entire.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This poem, which opens the murabba section of the divan, consists of nine stanzas and is written in the remel metre with the pattern "Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilün". The murabba is a verse form made up of four-line stanzas. In this poem the fourth line of every stanza is an identical refrain: "Hâledür kim devr idüpdür mâh-ı tâbânı dürüst". In the first two stanzas all four lines carry the same "-ânı dürüst" rhyme as the refrain; in the later stanzas the first three lines rhyme among themselves on a new rhyme (baġlamış; ḳamer / fer / kemer; cânâneler; meh-pâreler; revân; gül-‘iẕâr; aḫteri), while the fourth line ties each stanza back to the first through the refrain. The murabba appears in all four manuscripts (F, M, S, Ü).

Historical Context

The refrain appears to have been taken from a couplet by another poet. In a fifteenth-century anthology of response poems (nazire), introduced by Ahmet Mermer, who believes it was compiled during the lifetime of Ahmed Paşa, the following couplet appears as Nizâmî's among the responses written to Ahmed Paşa's ghazal beginning with the opening couplet "‘Âşıkun gönli sınıkdur ‘ahd ü peymânı dürüst": "Hatt-ı reyhân kim tolanmışdur gülistânı dürüst / Hâledür kim devr idüpdür mâh-ı tâbânı dürüst". The anthology gives this section the heading "Nezâ’ir-i Nizâmî Çelebi li-gazeliyât-ı Ahmed Paşa"; Mermer identifies the poet called "Nizâmî Çelebi" in the anthology as Nizâmî of Karaman. The last two lines of the first stanza of Mihrî's murabba are identical to this couplet. The first two lines of that stanza announce it openly: "that fine ghazal-singer of the rose garden of the world" has completed "this couplet" in his divan. The murabba thus becomes a poem that takes an admired couplet from another poet, makes it a refrain and expands on it. Mihrî does not name the couplet's author; the word "ġazel-ḫân" (ghazal-singer) in the first stanza may be taken to point to Nizâmî, but nothing in the poem confirms this. Describing, in the same anthology, Visâlî's response to a murabba by Ahmed Paşa, Mermer notes a similar arrangement: the rhyme of the first stanza follows the model poem, the last lines of the other stanzas continue the same rhyme, and the rhyme of the middle lines changes.

The redif "dürüst" was a favoured pattern among the poets of the period. Sıtkı Nazik notes that this redif was used by Necâtî above all, and also by Mihrî, Tâcîzâde Cafer Çelebi and Bayezid II, who wrote poetry under the pen name (mahlas) Adlî, and he compares the first stanza of Mihrî's murabba with Cafer Çelebi's thirteenth ghazal, which has the same "-ânı dürüst" rhyme and redif. According to Nazik, both poets praise their own verse and draw attention to the completeness and worth of their divans. The anthology entry published by Mermer, for its part, shows that this pattern goes back as far as Ahmed Paşa.

Amasya is named in the eighth stanza. Gülşen Kaya observes that Amasya, as the city where the poet was born and lived, is the city name that occurs most often in the divan, and she lists this murabba among the poems that, in speaking of a beauty living in Amasya, describe the city as ringed by mountains. The identity of the beauty in the stanza is not stated.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The simile in the refrain carries the whole poem: the down around the cheek is likened to the ring of light around the moon, the halo. Mihrî applies this simile to a different ring in each stanza and ties the refrain to a new meaning each time. In the second stanza the ring is the basil-script written on the page of the cheek; because the phrase "ḫaṭṭ-ı reyḥân" recalls both the basil plant and the script style called reyhânî, the couplet contains a double entendre (tevriye). In the fourth stanza the belt that encircles the waist of the full-moon-faced beloved, in the fifth the beloveds forming a ring around the beloved and the moths circling the candle, in the sixth the cup passing from hand to hand and the stars ringing the moon, and in the seventh the collar around the neck all become the same halo. The word "devr ider" (passes round) in the sixth stanza comes from the same root as "devr idüpdür" (has encircled) in the refrain and builds a bridge of sound and meaning between the two lines.

The eighth stanza carries the simile over to a landscape. The mountains have drawn a circle around the beauty of Amasya; when the refrain arrives, the city lying among the mountains, or the beauty in it, appears like the moon at the centre of the halo. As Kaya also notes, the stanza recalls the city's setting among mountains; the image joins the shape of the land to the conventional imagery of divan poetry.

The ninth stanza ties the murabba to Mihrî's own fortune. Celestial images such as the blazing star of fortune and the sun of good fortune rising in the darkness of grief form a congruence of images (tenasüp) with the moon and halo of the refrain. Kaya explains this stanza as the sun of good fortune rising over the head of a poet who has reached union with the beloved, in the darkness of grief. In the last line the angel-faced, moon-countenanced beloved and the circle of the sky are named together, and the simile taken in the first stanza from another poet's couplet is now used to express Mihrî's own happiness.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Mehmet Arslan (ed.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları (Kültür Eserleri Dizisi 576), 2018, p. 164-165, Murabba‘ 1 (F 34a, M 48b, S 36b, Ü 29a). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr

Academic studies

Online sources