Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilün

Gördügümce ḫad ü ḳadd ü leb-i yâri ṣanuram
Biri güldür biri ġonca birisi serv-i revân

In English

1. Whenever I see the beloved's cheek, stature and lip, I imagine that one is a rose, one a rosebud, and one a swaying cypress. (The cheek is the rose, the lip is the rosebud that has not yet opened, and the tall, straight stature is the walking cypress; the order of the three has been deliberately mixed.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This is the fourth couplet of the müfred section in Arslan's edition and is found only in the Ü manuscript (77a). In this single-couplet poem the lines do not rhyme: the first line ends in "ṣanuram" and the second in "revân". The metre is the remel pattern "Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilün". By Arslan's count this is the second most frequently used pattern in the divan and occurs in forty-eight poems. To whom the couplet was addressed, or on what occasion, is not known. The word "Gördügümce" at the beginning is used in the sense of the modern "gördükçe" ("whenever I see").

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The couplet is built on a familiar order in divan poetry, in which the elements of the beloved's beauty are enumerated together with their counterparts in nature. The first line names three elements of beauty: "ḫad" (cheek), "ḳadd" (stature) and "leb" (lip). The second line gives their counterparts: rose, rosebud and "serv-i revân". The redness and freshness of the cheek are likened to the rose, the small closed lip to a rosebud that has not yet opened, and the tall, straight stature to the cypress. That the cypress is called "revân" (walking, flowing) describes the beloved's swaying gait; a cypress is a tree that stands in place, and the walking cypress is the beloved herself or himself.

This structure is called leff ü neşr: first several words are listed (leff), and then the words related to them are enumerated separately (neşr). If the order of the two series matches, it is called leff ü neşr-i müretteb, and if not, leff ü neşr-i gayr-i müretteb. In this couplet the first series runs cheek, stature, lip and the second rose, rosebud, cypress. Cheek and rose match, but in second place stature does not match rosebud, nor in third place lip the cypress; the correct pairings are stature with cypress and lip with rosebud. The couplet is therefore an example of leff ü neşr with a mixed order, that is, gayr-i müretteb. The reader has to make the pairing, and by saying "biri ... biri ... birisi" ("one ... one ... another") the poet leaves this work to the reader on purpose.

Rose, rosebud and cypress are also elements of a garden, and there is a congruence of images (tenasüp) among them. When the three beauties of the beloved come together, a whole rose garden emerges. The word "ṣanuram" ("I imagine") presents the comparison as an illusion: the poet, as she looks at the beloved, truly imagines herself to be in a garden. Of Mihrî's müfreds, two treat the down on the beloved's face, while this couplet treats the beloved's whole appearance. All three use the garden and sweet imagery of divan poetry, and each is like a small picture completed within a single couplet.

Bibliography

  • Mehmet Arslan (ed.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları (Kültür Eserleri Dizisi 576), 2018, p. 185, Müfred 4 (Ü 77a); introduction p. 11. ekitap.ktb.gov.tr