Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Gerçi gördük bu cihân rûyında çoḳ cân-bâzlar
Ḫûblar maḥbûblar pür-şîveler pür-nâzlar
Rişte-i cân ile oynar ġamzesi ġammâzlar
Râstî cân-bâz Ḥaydar ḫayli ḫoş cân-bâz imiş
Her ḳaçan biñ nâz ile alsa terâzûsın ele
Cânlar ardınca revân olur velî diller bile
Bir daḫi mis̱li cihân rûyına ġâlib az gele
Râstî cân-bâz Ḥaydar ḫayli ḫoş cân-bâz imiş
Egribük'de çün hevâ yüzinde ḳurdı rîsmân
Rîsmân üstinde oynar ṣan kebûterdür hemân
Oynadı ḫoş Şeh Süleymân'uñ öñinde baş u cân
Râstî cân-bâz Ḥaydar ḫayli ḫoş cân-bâz imiş
Perçemin çözse geh ‘uşşâḳa kemendler gösterür
Oḳısa ebyât-ı şîrîn la‘l-i ḳandler gösterür
Bir dem içre oynasa biñ dürlü bendler gösterür
Râstî cân-bâz Ḥaydar ḫayli ḫoş cân-bâz imiş
Sîm ü zer ṭabaḳlar ile zeyn ider hengâmesin
Ayaġınuñ altına alur bu çarḫuñ kâsesin
Kendüyi çeküp kenâra ustasını aṣasın
Râstî cân-bâz Ḥaydar ḫayli ḫoş cân-bâz imiş
Rîsmânını zemîn üstinde bâlâ eyledi
Ruḫlarınuñ rengini ḫoş âl ü âlâ eyledi
Şâh bezminde anı Mihrî temâşâ eyledi
Râstî cân-bâz Ḥaydar ḫayli ḫoş cân-bâz imiş

In English

1. We have seen many a canbaz (rope-dancer, "one who plays with his life") on the face of this world: the beautiful, the beloveds, people full of coquetry and pride. Their pursuing glances play on the rope of the soul (that is, the languid glances of the beautiful play with the lover's life). Truly, the rope-dancer Haydar was a very fine rope-dancer indeed.

2. Whenever he takes his balancing pole (terâzû, literally "scales") in hand with a thousand airs, souls flow after him, and hearts with them. It is very unlikely that another like him will come to the face of the world. Truly, the rope-dancer Haydar was a very fine rope-dancer indeed.

3. When he stretched his rope across the face of the air at Eğribük, he played upon it as though he were a pigeon. Before Şah Süleyman he played beautifully, staking head and life. Truly, the rope-dancer Haydar was a very fine rope-dancer indeed.

4. Sometimes, when he loosens his forelock, he shows the lovers lassos (the braid becomes a lasso that snares lovers). When he recites sweet couplets, his ruby lips show sugar. When he plays for a moment, he shows a thousand kinds of bonds and feats. Truly, the rope-dancer Haydar was a very fine rope-dancer indeed.

5. He adorns his performance, before the crowd gathered round, with silver and gold trays; he takes the bowl of this heaven under his feet (the bowls beneath his feet recall the dome of the sky, likened to an upturned bowl). The third line can be read in two ways: "let him draw himself aside and hang his master" (that is, his skill has so far surpassed his master's that the master should now step aside), or it refers to a detail of the performance between master and apprentice that can no longer be fully understood today. Truly, the rope-dancer Haydar was a very fine rope-dancer indeed.

6. He raised his rope high above the ground; he made the colour of his cheeks a lovely crimson (with the excitement). Mihrî watched him in the shah's assembly. Truly, the rope-dancer Haydar was a very fine rope-dancer indeed.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The third murabba of the divan consists of six stanzas and is written in the remel metre of the aruz in the pattern "Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilün". The murabba is a verse form built from four-line stanzas; when, as here, the same line is repeated at the end of every stanza, it is called a "mütekerrir murabba" (repeating murabba). The four lines of the first stanza rhyme with one another (cân-bâzlar, nâzlar, ġammâzlar); in the later stanzas the first three lines rhyme among themselves, while the fourth returns as the refrain "Râstî cân-bâz Ḥaydar ḫayli ḫoş cân-bâz imiş". The internal rhymes of the stanzas are built on the sounds "ele, bile, gele", "rîsmân, hemân, cân", "kemendler, ḳandler, bendler", "hengâmesin, kâsesin, aṣasın" and "bâlâ, âlâ, temâşâ", respectively; in the fourth and sixth stanzas "gösterür" and "eyledi" serve as redif (refrain words).

In Arslan's edition the poem rests solely on the M manuscript in the National Library in Ankara (67b). Although the Istanbul University manuscript (Ü) contains eight murabbas, this poem is not among them; this is why it is absent from Sabiha Gemici's 1990 thesis, which takes the Ü manuscript as its base, and from Didem Havlioğlu's electronic edition. Arslan's use of the M manuscript as well has raised the number of murabbas in the divan to nine with this poem.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The whole play of the poem is built on the two meanings of the word "cân-bâz". In the dictionary the word means "one who plays with his life"; this is why the performer who works on a rope is called a canbaz. In divan poetry, however, canbaz is the name of the lover who is ready at every moment to stake his life for the beloved, or of the beloved who plays with the lover's life. The thesis on the divan prepared by Gülşen Kaya shows that in another poem as well Mihrî likens the lover's soul to a canbaz tumbling down a rope that hangs from the beloved's lock of hair. The first stanza begins from this figurative sense: many canbaz have been seen in the world, and they are the coquettish beauties who play with the lovers' lives. The refrain line, for its part, ties all these figures to a real person, the canbaz named Haydar, and turns the speech from jest to praise in a single stroke. Haydar is at once a rope-dancer in the literal sense and is described like a beloved who wins the hearts of the spectators with his beauty.

The stanzas follow the course of the performance. In the second stanza the canbaz takes the balancing pole in hand and the crowd walks after him; "terâzû" is the name of this pole. In the third stanza the rope is stretched into the air and the canbaz plays upon it like a pigeon; this simile shows both lightness and a body that seems to spread its wings. The idiom "baş u cân oynamak" (to stake head and life) describes both undertaking a dangerous enterprise and the rope-dancer's art itself. The fourth stanza turns to the canbaz's beauty. The likening of a loosened forelock to a lasso is a familiar conceit of divan poetry. Here, however, the closeness between rope and lasso binds the material of the performance to the beloved's hair and produces a fine congruence of images (tenasüp). The word "bend" in the phrase "biñ dürlü bendler gösterür" (he shows a thousand kinds of bonds) is open at once to the meanings of the knots and ties made on the rope, the skill shown in the performance, and the poem's own "bent" (stanza). The same stanza also says that the canbaz recites sweet couplets between the feats.

The fifth stanza gives the decoration of the performance: gold and silver trays, and the bowls the canbaz takes under his feet. Kaya explains this stanza as the canbaz animating his show with gold and silver bowls and playing with these bowls under his feet, and she infers from the line that canbaz were trained in a master-apprentice relationship. "The bowl of the heavens" (çarḫuñ kâsesi) is the dome of the sky; with the bowl under his feet the canbaz has, as it were, taken the heavens under his feet. This hyperbole both describes a movement truly seen on the stage and carries the canbaz's height up to the sky. In the last stanza the rope is stretched high above the ground, the canbaz's cheeks turn crimson with excitement, and the poet puts herself on the scene: "Mihrî watched him in the shah's assembly." The phrase "âl ü âlâ" is a play on sound that carries both "red" and "most excellent" at once.

Historical Context

The poem describes a performance Mihrî watched herself and says plainly where it took place and in whose presence. The performance was given at Eğribük, "before Şeh Süleymân"; the last stanza adds that it was a shah's assembly. Eğribük is a village attached to Amasya, and it occurs in the divan once more, in ghazal 150. In that ghazal Mihrî describes a gathering of conversation and music lasting until dawn in a lofty palace (ḳaṣr-ı ‘âlî) on a hilltop in Eğribük. Gülşen Kaya connects both poems with Prince Süleyman's mansion in Eğribük and writes that in her last years Mihrî attended the assemblies of Prince Süleyman, son of Prince Ahmed, and presented three kasides to him. Arslan's e-book edition, however, does not explain the identity of "Şeh Süleymân". If this Süleyman is accepted as the son of Prince Ahmed, the performance should fall in the last years of Mihrî's life, in the later years of the first decade of the sixteenth century. There is, however, no dated record to confirm this.

Who the rope-dancer Haydar was is not known. Kaya notes that there is no information on whether he is the same person as the "Haydar Şâh" mentioned in the divan as riding a horse on a feast day. According to Kaya, the poem is among the verses that give the divan's richest material for social life: through a witness's eyes it records the entertainments held at a prince's palace, the arrangement of rope-dancers' shows, and the presence of the audience and the assembly. That the poet herself says openly that she was among those watching the performance is also a direct record of a woman poet's place in a prince's assembly.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Mehmet Arslan (ed.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları (Kültür Eserleri Dizisi 576), 2018, p. 165-166, Murabba‘ 3 (M manuscript 67b). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr

Academic studies

  • Gülşen Kaya, Mihrî Hâtun Divânı'nın Tahlili, master's thesis, Fırat Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Elazığ 2010, p. 60-61, 70, 79-80, 97, 296. openaccess.firat.edu.tr
  • Sabiha Gemici, Mihrî Hatun Divanı: Karşılaştırmalı Metin, Cümle Yapısı ve Cümle Türleri, doctoral thesis, Uludağ Üniversitesi, Balıkesir 1990 (for the distribution of the murabbas among the manuscripts).

Online sources