Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilün

Çünki mevcûd oldı Ādem ḫâkden
Mihrî mihr umma iñen eflâkden
Pes bu dehr-i pîre-zen murdârdur
‘Āḳil iseñ geñ yüri nâ-pâkden

In English

1. Since Adam came into being from earth, O Mihrî, do not hope for much love and faithfulness from the heavens. ("Mihr" means both sun and love; the poet plays on the word and her own pen name. "İñen" means very, much.)

2. So this old hag of a world is carrion, filth; if you have sense, keep away from this impure thing and walk on, taking a wide road around it.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

These two couplets are the first piece of the section titled "Çâr-‘Anâṣır", "The Four Elements", which comes directly after Mihrî Hatun's mesnevi the Tażarru‘-nâme. After couplet 461 of the Tażarru‘-nâme, Mehmet Arslan's edition gives under this heading four small poems of two couplets each, for earth, water, fire and air; the title of this piece is "Ḫâk", that is, earth. According to Arslan's footnote, this section is absent from the F, M and S manuscripts and exists only in the Ü manuscript in the Istanbul University Library. Sabiha Gemici, in her doctoral study of the divan, records the same situation: the four qit‘as appear only in the Ü manuscript and in the text published by Elena Maştakova in Moscow in 1967. Gemici also notes that in the divan these pieces stand between the Tażarru‘-nâme and the second tevhid.

The poem is written in the same metre as the Tażarru‘-nâme, the remel pattern "Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilün". The rhyme scheme is aa xa: in the first couplet the two lines rhyme on "ḫâkden" and "eflâkden", and the second line of the second couplet joins this rhyme with "nâ-pâkden". Here the sounds "-âk" form the rhyme and the suffix "-den" forms the redif (refrain word). In the edition and in Gemici's study the pieces are called qit‘a (kıt‘a). There is no information on to whom or on what occasion they were written; since they were appended to the end of the mesnevi, they may belong to the last years of the poet's life, as Arslan proposes for the Tażarru‘-nâme, but there is no firm record on the matter.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

In the old view of the world it was believed that the realm of being was composed of four elements, namely water, earth, air and fire. Gülşen Kaya notes that these elements are mentioned in Mihrî's divan on various occasions and that the final section is devoted to them under the title "Çâr-‘Anâsır", with two couplets for each element. In this first piece the poet makes the fact that humankind was created from earth the starting point of a piece of counsel. Since Adam came into being from earth, a human being bears the heaviness and transience of the ground; to expect love and faithfulness from the felek, the revolving heavens, is in vain. In divan poetry the felek is thought of as a faithless power that ceaselessly torments human beings, and the couplet rests on this idea.

In the second line of the first couplet "Mihrî" and "mihr" are used together. Mihr in Persian means both sun and love; since the sun is in the heavens, among the spheres, the expression "eflâkden mihr ummak" means both to expect the sun from the heavens and to expect love from the heavens. By placing her own pen name right next to this word, the poet turns the saying upon herself: Mihrî, who bears the same name as the sun, should not expect mihr from the heavens. An antithesis (tezat) is set up between ḫâk and eflâk, between earth and sky.

In the second couplet the world is called "dehr-i pîre-zen", an old hag. Kaya cites this very couplet as an example of how the world is described in this way. Picturing the world as an old woman who deceives those who cling to her is a common simile in divan poetry; Mihrî sharpens it with the words "murdâr" and "nâ-pâk" and describes the world as something filthy and impure. The phrase "‘Āḳil iseñ geñ yüri" advises the sensible person to pass by, taking a wide road away from this filth.

The thought of the poem also echoes within the Tażarru‘-nâme. In a couplet quoted by Kaya the poet says that even if a person is shah over the seven climes, in the end he will become black earth: "Kişi olsa ger yedi iklîme şâh / Olısardur ‘âkıbet hâk-i siyâh." In Arslan's words the mesnevi is full of tevhid, munajat (prayer), repentance and counsel to the self, and the earth qit‘a that follows it summarizes the same ascetic outlook in a brief and memorable form.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Mehmet Arslan (ed.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları (Kültür Eserleri Dizisi 576), 2018, p. 227, Çâr-‘Anâṣır: Ḫâk (Ü) and footnote; introduction, p. 12. ekitap.ktb.gov.tr

Academic studies

  • Sabiha Gemici, Mihrî Hatun Divanı: Karşılaştırmalı Metin, Cümle Yapısı ve Cümle Türleri, doctoral thesis, Uludağ Üniversitesi, Balıkesir 1990, pp. 346, 410.
  • Gülşen Kaya, Mihrî Hâtun Divânı'nın Tahlili, master's thesis, Fırat Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Elazığ 2010, pp. 100, 269, 272. openaccess.firat.edu.tr

Online sources