Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Metre: Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilün
Çünki evvel Ādem aṣlı oldı âb
Ḥaḳ kelâmından didi bize kitâb
Her ki gelmişdür cihâna bî-s̱ebât
Olısar "yâ leytenî küntü türâb"
In English
1. That Adam's origin was, in the very beginning, water, the Book, that is the Qur'an, has told us in the word of the Truth (God).
2. Everyone who has come into this world without permanence will say (in the end, on the day of reckoning), "Would that I were dust." ("Yâ leytenî küntü türâb" is the phrase that occurs in the last verse of the Surah of Naba in the Qur'an.)
Literary and Historical Commentary
Structure of the Poem
These two couplets are the second piece of the "Çâr-‘Anâṣır" (Four Elements) section appended to the end of the Tażarru‘-nâme, and in the edition they bear the title "Āb", water. In Mehmet Arslan's edition this section stands after couplet 461 of the Tażarru‘-nâme, and according to Arslan's footnote it is absent from the F, M and S manuscripts and exists only in the Ü manuscript in the Istanbul University Library. Sabiha Gemici likewise records that the four qit‘as are found only in the Ü manuscript and in Elena Maştakova's Moscow edition. The four pieces in the section are written in the same metre, the remel pattern "Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilün", which is also the metre of the Tażarru‘-nâme.
The rhyme scheme, as in the other pieces of the section, is aa xa. In the first couplet "âb" rhymes with "kitâb"; the first line of the second couplet stays free with "bî-s̱ebât", and the second line returns to the rhyme with "türâb". The rhyme is built on the sounds "-âb"; there is no redif. There is no record of to whom or on what occasion it was written. Arslan thinks that the Tażarru‘-nâme was most probably written in the last years of Mihrî's life; these short pieces that follow the mesnevi may also be the product of the same period, but there is no document to show it.
Meaning and Figures of Speech
In the doctrine of the four elements, water is thought of as the source of life. Gülşen Kaya notes that water is the most used of the four elements in Mihrî's divan, and that the sacredness of water and its role as the source of life are emphasized by likening the beloved's lip to the water of life (âb-ı hayat) or the water of Kevser; as an example from the four-element section at the end of the Tażarru‘-nâme she cites the first couplet of this very qit‘a. In this qit‘a, however, water is the subject of a piece of religious knowledge concerning the creation of man.
The first couplet states that the Book says that the origin of man is water. There are verses in the Qur'an that carry this thought: in the thirtieth verse of the Surah al-Anbiya it is said that every living thing was made from water, and in the fifty-fourth verse of the Surah al-Furqan that it is God who created man from water. The poet does not say which verse she means; with the phrase "Ḥaḳ kelâmından" ("from the word of the Truth") she points only to the source of the knowledge. There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) between âb and kitâb, and between Ḥaḳ kelâmı and kitâb.
In the second couplet Mihrî takes a fragment of a verse directly into her poem. "Yâ leytenî küntü türâb" is the regret "Would that I were dust", which in the last verse of the Surah of Naba is related in the voice of the unbeliever who, on the day of resurrection, sees the reward of what he has done. Placing a fragment of a verse or a hadith in a poem is called iktibas (quotation), and Arslan too observes that the Tażarru‘-nâme is adorned with verses suited to its subject. The poet lays this saying on everyone who has come into the world as "bî-s̱ebât", that is, without permanence in this world. The piece, which begins with water as the source of life, thus ends with the wish to return to earth and links up with earth, the subject of the previous qit‘a. Water and earth, the two elements from which man was created, complete each other in these two pieces.
The qit‘a leaves no room at all for the theme of love; its language is the same as the language of supplication and repentance in the Tażarru‘-nâme. In the phrase Arslan uses for the mesnevi, the voice of a believing woman at the end of her life, full of confession and repentance, can be heard in these two couplets as well.
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: Āb (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. 269-271. openaccess.firat.edu.tr
Other sources
- Kur'ân-ı Kerîm, Enbiyâ 21/30; Furkân 25/54; Nebe 78/40.
Online sources
