Ottoman History Podcast - Love Poems of an Ottoman Woman: Mihrî Hatun

Episode Date: April 12, 2018

Episode 357 with Didem Havlioğlu hosted by Chris Gratien Download the podcast Feed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloud What did it mean to be a woman in the intellectual world of early modern Islamic empires? In this episode, our guest Didem Havlioğlu offers one answer to this question through the life and works of Mihrî Hatun, an Ottoman woman from 15th-century Amasya whose poetry survives to this day. Mihrî was unique within the male-dominated sphere of early modern love poetry, and as we discuss in this podcast, her position as a woman was integral to her poetry and its meaning. These poems and the relationships of this exceptional writer are the subject of Havlioğlu's new book entitled Mihrî Hatun: Performance, Gender-Bending, and Subversion in Ottoman Intellectual History (Syracuse University Press). « Click for More »

Welcome back to another episode of Ottoman History Podcast. I'm Chris Grayton. Today I'm starting off this episode with a simple question for our audience. Can you cite the name of a single woman author from the early modern Islamic world? If you can, please share with the Ottoman History Podcast community by leaving a comment in our blog or on our Facebook page. And if you can't, you're certainly not alone. But worry not, because by the end of this episode, you will be well acquainted with one such author, an early modern Ottoman poet, and in fact, we'll even get to hear some of her work in translation. We've got a return guest on the program today, Didem Havlioglu. Dr. Havlioglu, welcome back to the Ottoman History Podcast. Thank you. It's wonderful to be back.

Didem Havlioglu is actually one of the first scholars to come on the podcast from outside our little Ottoman History Podcast circle with Emre Safa Gürkan in Istanbul. I think you came on way back in 2012. Isn't that right? I think so. Yeah, yeah. And many things have changed since then. First, your byline has changed. Dinem Havlioglu is a lecturer in the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.

And today we're discussing her book, which is now out, entitled Mihri Hatun, Performance, Gender Bending, and Subversion in ottoman intellectual history an exciting title and an exciting conversation i'd like to mention from the outset that this particular episode of ottoman history podcast is in a way sponsored by the university of virginia corcoran department of history who was kind enough to sponsor dr havlila's visit to charlottesville virginia to record this podcast so you, you know, many thanks to the department and our chair, Karen Parshall, for helping set that up. Didem, before we get into the themes of your new book, which is out from Syracuse University Press, let's just briefly introduce the protagonist of the story, Mihri Hatun. I know you've done a lot of work to try to figure out who Mihri Hatun was.

So just give us her quick bio, you know, what are the basics we need to know about this figure? Mihri Hatun was a woman poet from early modern Ottoman times. She was from Amasya, from an eastern province, which was a cultural center at that time. an eastern province, which was a cultural center at that time. What is significant about Mihri Hatun is she collected her poetry into a divan, and it survived in four manuscript copies. So other women poets, few women poets we know of, we don't know much about their work. And so what immediately strikes us about Mihri Hatun, one is her success in navigating a male-dominated space, as we'll talk about. But before doing so, I'd like to ask maybe one of the more challenging questions when approaching the subject of women within

Islamic intellectual history and within literature and poetry in particular, because one would think that women were very involved in the arts, and there's plenty of scholarship that says that women were involved in the life of the Ottoman court, for example. Not just there, but as the work of Leslie Pierce shows, quite powerful. So when approaching Mehri Hatun, I mean, what I want to ask you is, is it that she was quite exceptional and that she was a prolific woman author? Or is it that she is quite exceptional and that for some twist of fate, her poetry survived whereas other women were erased?

Or is it simply that the historiography of the Ottoman Empire, which was being formulated by men during Ottoman times and continued to be dominated by male-centered questions and perspectives, has sort of effaced figures like Mehri Hatun from the historiography. I think all of them, everything you said, she's exceptional. As I just mentioned, her work survived. So there is an evidence of her existence in the intellectual world. So that is very significant. It is a very rare text from an early modern times, not only for the Ottoman history, but also the Middle East and the European history of women's writing. So this is a, you know, this is an interesting story. But she is also exceptional. I actually called her a lucky star in my book.

And I think she was aware of that too. She was in the right time and the right place. So there were things to come together for her survival in history so that we know of her. And so this can be her background, privileged background. She comes from this really privileged family. She is in this, is a vibrant city, which is very important for any intellectual and artist to become one in their career,

is a very important component, the city and the patronage. So she was lucky that she had very strong patrons. She studied with the most prominent people at the time. So she was lucky. But at the same time, this shows us that it is possible for a woman to be part of the intellectual circles, to produce poetry, to get into debate, poetic debates with her male colleagues. She is a very lucky incident for us too, so that she she she um allows us a glimpse of women's lives at that time otherwise you know we are uh speculating about women's life now uh you know

what i try to do in my book i'm talking about a text and i focus on that text and her words, which this is probably what makes her exceptional in women's history, in Ottoman women's history. And I think once our listeners who are out there researching early modern Ottoman poetry hear some of these lines from Mihri Hatun's poetry, they're going to be out there trying to dig up their own Mihri Hatun. going to be out there trying to dig up their own Mihri Hatun. And so maybe for the purposes of laying down that roadmap of how one might find her, let's develop more that context of the social networks she navigates from 15th century Amasya to kind of create this statue for herself such that she would be renowned and remembered among the many illustrious male poets of the classical Ottoman period? I think one important part of that, you know, she was part of this network of intellectuals and scholars around the prince's palace in Amasya. So Bayezid II was serving as the governor of the province Amasya. From her poetry, we can trace that she was part of those circles. And also other prominent figures.

So her friendships, her intellectual exchange happened through these people. So these people are part of her life. So when we look at the matter this way, we see a network of people and network of intellectuals, which make each other's career, you know, in so to speak. And so so what I also try to do in the book, I'm telling her story, yes, but I'm also talking about people around her, which is very important in her making as a woman poet. So I think it wouldn't be wrong to approach it as like this is like a collective intellectual biography of a certain time and place focusing on a woman. I think here we should mention, as we get into the conversation of what it was like for Mihri Hatun to be a woman in this male-dominated space, that she was from a prominent family in Ottoman society.

No, she wasn't married with a family. She had lived this single existence that allowed her to nurture her career. And indeed, some of her closest relationships were with other poets. You talk about the figure of Hatemi in your work. That's right. Hatemi is his pen name. He is Mu'izzad Abdurrahman Chalabi. He's a very prominent figure in early modern intellectual history.

And unfortunately, we don't have, none of his work survived. Oh, wow. But we know of him in secondary sources. He was a very prolific writer. He was a bibliophile. He had this extensive library. So he happened to be from Amasya, from the same circles of Miri. And actually, Teskira writers, the biographical dictionaries, mentioned that they were friends.

They actually worked together. They specifically say that Mihri studied love with him, which means studying love, you know, studying poetry and studying this intellectual discourse that we talk about. And there are poems that she dedicated to him. And do you think they were in love? Do you think they had a romantic relationship as we understand it today?

I think the biographers, especially Ashik Cherebi, who's very playful and entertaining in his telling her story, he plays with this idea because it's entertaining. It is gossip. It is, you know, of course we don't know. Probably Ashik Chedri didn't also know even though he was the grandson of Mehretzadeh, right? So whatever we know about Mehri is actually what Ashik heard from Mehretzadeh.

Who knows, maybe it is possible. There's lots of gossip about her love affairs in biographical dictionaries, and I don't think it is random. I think they do it on purpose to trigger some curiosity about her, but somehow introducing this idea that love can be platonic, love can be friendship, there can be love between colleagues. So there's certain intimacy between these people that they share a culture, they share a language, and they are part of this very significant and intimate group. I think that's what they mean when they say they are in love

with each other because I don't know of course you know their personal meanings but I think you can trace what you can trace from poetry is who cares about who. I mean so for instance she picks some people to get into a poetic debate and poetic dialogue. I don't think this is a coincidence. I think she's like consciously making some decision to make connections with certain people and Hatemi is one of them. Yeah.

And I mean, you mentioned Ashik Celebi, the biographer who's written many biographies of prominent figures in Ottoman history, a lot of what we know about people may come solely from Ashik Celebi in the cases of some individuals. And you've alluded to this salacious, provocative role that Mihri Hatun and her celebrity plays within the constellation of Ottoman literary figures in Aşık Çelebi's work. When I heard you speak on it, you mentioned this passage where he describes Mihri Hatun's love and relationship to love poetry. There's this very memorable line where he says, a lioness is still a lion, isn't she?

So could you maybe share with us the translation of that passage? And we'll talk a little bit about it. Sure. I mean, I think this is a very interesting passage. And I had, when I first read it with my Walter Ojam, Walter Andrews, years ago, we worked on this for a long time to unravel the meaning because it is confusing when you first look at it. So, Aishik introduces Mihri in four pages, about four pages in his Meshav Rishuara. So, this is compared to other entries. It's a very lengthy entry.

So, this is a passage from that entry. He says, she made her love poems virginal meanings as her dowry and brought them with her to the nuptial chamber. In her beautiful love poems, she is a virgin girl like Joseph. While male poets were craving, as a woman, she made them, meaning virginal meanings, cheap. Even though there are some indecent words in her poems, they are like the menstrual fluid of men. Influenced by this, some deficient meanings are seen in her poetry. However, they are considered to be from the class that needs guidance. And they, her poems, are not low quality, but average. Her writing is like a woman's embroidery.

Her composition is promiscuous. As they say, a male lion is a lion, but isn't a lion is a lion too. She was not free of beloved chasing. Yes, I mean, this is a very interesting passage. There are some things that are lost in translation at first.

For example, the mention of the menstrual fluid of men. What does that refer to? What is that metaphor, the menstrual fluid of men? Right. He definitely mixes and matches this gender values and gender qualities with male and female figures. you know, values and gender qualities with, you know, male and female figures. And because he's talking about a woman here, he is bringing up these biological, natural, bodily reality and then mixing them with the unexpected gender. I think menstrual fluid of men is actually the indecent words that they are using for poetry. So because, you know, poetry is a business of love and if one engages in this business, they have to engage in this language, which can be considered indecent from outsiders and which can be seen as a

menstrual fluid. Right, it's nasty but it's also natural. It is natural for this business, right? So I think he does this when he's introducing a woman on purpose or maybe he's drawing attention the fluidity between genders and and the values of the genders and and how it can be challenged actually so so there's a pretty interesting way of introducing her yeah I mean to the modern ears at first it comes off as like sexist or kind of objectifying her but do you see it a little bit differently? Are you saying he's actually playing with these images in order to normalize her?

I think he is trying to use these very well-known biological facts in subversive ways. Because he says menstrual fluid of man, there's no such a thing, right? Or he compares her virginity to Joseph's virginity instead of another woman, right? So we don't expect a man to be a virgin. At least it's not a quality we're looking for. But if probably Arshak is predicting his audience's questions about a woman.

If she is a poet, is she a respectable woman? So a respectable woman should be either virgin or married. So because she's not married, she should be virgin. So he is trying to introduce her as a good woman who happened to engage in poetry. Also, it is entertaining. You see, like, you know also it is entertaining you see like you know it is not boring to read this even today i mean we had the the lioness is still a lion quote which you know i guess refers to you know women have passions too right but then he even goes further to say that uh i believe the phrasing was that she was able to write these

virginal poems for the beloved that it was very easy for her she made them cheap is how you have it in the translation right yes I think he's he it's important to mention what what words he's using here he's using first of all version of meanings is the you meanings is a very important concept here, bikrimana, meaning creating new meanings or being creative. So it is something desired in a poet. So it is very easy for her, he says, to create bikrimana, to have new meanings.

Meanwhile, some men are craving for those meanings and the word he uses for that is aşırmek. Aşırmek is still used today specifically for pregnant women when they crave for strange things. So now again, he's using this word specifically we expect for women, he's using for men.

He's actually a huge fan of Mehri Hatun. I think so. I believe, actually, after studying on these tazkiras for a while, his influence in her survival in history is huge. Of course, he writes 50 years after her lifetime, probably hearing the stories about Mihri from his grandfather, Mu'izz Adab, Ramayana Chalbi, and he creates this woman, the image of woman in his work, which is copied over and over again throughout centuries until today.

So can you imagine that he's creating this persona uh the woman intellectual the new member of the of their circles um and then you know and then she becomes celebrity yeah right so and we'll talk more about that celebrity that you know mihri hatun wasn't just a woman an exception in that regard to be a prominent poet and be a woman, but actually so much about her work and about her celebrity was about the fact she was a woman. So we'll have a quick music break and then we'll come back in and talk more about that. We're talking to Didem Havlioglu about her new book on the Ottoman poet Mehri Hatun. Stay tuned. Karanlık bir sabah kapalı kapılar Susturmuş saati bırakmıyor kuşlar.

Gözleri fal taşı, sekiyor tavanda, geziyor ruhu bir örümcek alında. Vurma beni elmayla, unuttum tüm belediyemi, çıkardım yola kendimi dönüyorum hep en başa Vurma beni elmayla unuttum tüm bildiğimi çıkardım yola kendimi dönüyorum hep en başa Ne oldu sana sansa sorsan aynaya Var mı senden güzeli şu sefili dünyada Welcome back to Ottoman History Podcast. I'm Chris Grayton. I'm here with Dr. Didem Havlioglu. We're talking about her new book out from Syracuse University Press

entitled Mihri Hatun, Performance, Gender Bending, and Subversion in Ottoman Intellectual History. Didem, we've already learned a little bit about the figure of Mihri Hatun, an early modern Ottoman woman poet, very exceptional in some regard, and how she navigated various social networks in 15th century Amasya to rise and gain some stature within the world of Ottoman literature. And as we've already learned from looking at the biographer Aşık Çelebi, the fact that she was a woman was not only striking for the historian today looking back, but was also striking for people in her time. And so maybe now we'll talk about one of the themes you raise, one of the

conceptual ideas you're working with in the book, that is gender bending. And for those who have studied Ottoman poetry or even early modern poetry in the Islamic world and Europe as well, gender bending will already be a familiar theme in some regard. People will know perhaps the study of Walter Andrews and Mehmet Kalpaklu entitled The Age of the Beloveds, which dealt with, you know, homoerotic facets of Ottoman poetry, the homosocial nature of the arena of Ottoman literature. And for our listeners, we can cite a interview we've done with Selim Kuru on the subject of the role of idealized male beauty in Ottoman literature. So all this is to say that we have a lot of Ottoman poetry about men writing really interesting stuff about other men that may even be described as being not so

masculine, right? You know, how does Mihri Hatun fit into this very male and masculinity boys club, let's say, of Ottoman literature. Yeah. So this was the main concern when I started reading her poetry, because thanks to Walter Andrews, Mehmet Kalpak's work, and Selim Kruz's works, they laid the ground, actually, They laid the ground, actually, talking about the nature of this discourse of love and how the ideal of beauty is ambiguous, genderless, or in some cases, male, right? So clearly male, when they mention the beloved's name, for instance, Selim talks about that. So when I started working on Mihri, my issue was not the, you know, who is the beloved? My problem was with the speaker.

So what happens when a woman speaks? What happens when a woman expresses her desire because this will discourse of love is established and constructed for the male actors only it looks like right so at least by the numbers like you know the the majority of poets are male and we are talking about a majorly culture, most of the audience is male also. So what happens when a woman enters into this world? So this is the question. I think, at least what I propose in my book, because she has this marginal position, and this is not necessarily a bad thing. This is not a negative thing. She uses this

marginal position in a very productive way for herself. She doesn't claim to be a man. She doesn't pretend to be a man. She doesn't take a pen name, male pen name, for instance, which is very common among women writers. It is clear that she's a woman and she expresses her desire for the male beloved still and so this is suddenly like it's not the homosocial it's not the homoerotic you know this is this is a rupture actually right so we we think about if we see the whole aesthetic system changes right right it is possible to do this because I think these roles are not fixed and also not really related to the biology so much, but more than performance. And so she performs to be a poet, right? So she uses this discourse and she sometimes claims these male virtues such as courage and bravery. And because she pursues love, she needs to.

She even says, like, I came to the battlefield. Let's fight, right? Let's fight for the beloved. I am much better than's fight, right? Let's fight for the beloved. I am much better than those rivals, right? So I'm going to prove myself. So I think it's a very, it's one of the overarching themes in her work. She tries to prove herself as a poet, and she does, and she succeeds so that she survives. So this is, I think this is the gender-bending part,

which automatically happens as soon as she speaks. The subject position she holds as a woman and enters into this discourse, which is like there before her. She, all she has to do is to speak. And so she does, and it is accepted, which is also very interesting. Yeah. And I mean, what you're saying there kind of, for those who don't have the background in early modern Ottoman poetry, and it's hard to wrap our heads around because there's been so much historical debate about how the content

of the poetry actually relates to people's sexuality right in practice right so you have men writing poems about young men boyish boyish men as the idealized beauty and there's huge debate as to whether or not that actually reflected their their sexual desires and practice or whether this is a aesthetic but the point is that when a woman enters this arena, it becomes sexualized because that's- Because she has a gender. The heteronormative sexuality that's taking place in society. You can't really ignore that that easily.

I mean, for our American audience, like they might think of bodies in the sports world, right? Like football, you know, there's a lot of talk about men's bodies when you watch a football game, like fixation on like their features and everything. But imagine if suddenly half the players were women and half the commentators were women and it wasn't this male-dominated space,

just how different all that conversation would sound in our society. It is significant to realize that she is not depicting a female beauty. She is speaking as a female. I think this is very important because this way she is not proposing a new aesthetic. So she's still idealizing the male beauty. So I think it is very significant from her part.

If she did this like consciously to be included, probably it worked, right? So because it is so rare to idealize female beauty. There's very few, especially around this time, very few poems idealizing female beauty. It is not considered beautiful. So I think, you know, she doesn't do that. And so she survived in this whole discourse. And what about the converse argument, you know, that female beauty is rarely talked about? But some would say that's not because females weren't considered beautiful or a woman's body was not considered beautiful.

But the describing it would be so salacious, so scandalous, just so overly sexualized that it would be vulgar or even perhaps taboo and forbidden to utter such descriptions within the realm of poetry is that also in play like you know sort of thinking about this whole idea of who was the ideal beloved and how they're described like the imagery used is that a factor as well I think it's also for the female beloveds they are not described in full detail so when when you look at this book kind of poetry how they are described there's no detail at all they are they they are this abstract image which represents beauty right so they have this moon face they have this like

very small mouths very like swaying bodies that can belong to anybody. So it is very abstract. And I think this is very Islamic. It's very long lines with Islamic aesthetics, right? So the abstraction of beauty, which is, you know, we can find in other arts too. So, of course, they don't do that for women also. And, yeah, it would be vulgar. This doesn't mean that there were pornographic work describing body and, you know,

and the function of the body. But we are talking about this, you know, this. It's hardly courtly to talk about in graphic detail. At least not in this case, right? So even courts has different, various courts, because it really depends, you know, the host, the place, because these are like really intimate meetings. It can, place um because it's these are like really intimate meetings um it can it really depends what the the uh what the host wants to do so so they can commission the pornographic work and that should be fine uh but we're morally mostly talking about more um you know uh poetry in more circulation in these uh elite groups yeah so the, I mean, we should note that for our listeners.

And if they want to hear a very different representation of the issue of bodies and sexuality in Ottoman literature, they should check out our podcast with Irving Jemias Schick. It's entitled The Ottoman Erotic. It won't be hard to find it on our website.

Again, dealing exactly with this, you know, the body literature, the graphic descriptions and the rich vocabulary and ways of describing human body and sex that is actually quite alien to some of the other scholarship on literature in the Ottoman Empire, which, as we've been saying, especially with regard to certain court practices, is actually relatively, you know, it's love without a lot of sex. It's very metaphorical. It's very abstract. And as you said, Mihri Hatun, just by being a woman, kind of disrupts that a little, even if it's in a somewhat tame way. But as we're going to find out in the final section of our conversation today, it was about more than just being a woman in the lyrics of Mihri Hatun's poetry. We can see what she was trying to do. Didem isn't just reading between the lines. Mihri Hatun has left us clues about how she feels about being a woman in the world of

Ottoman poetry. So stay with us after another short music break, and we'll be back with Didem Havlioglu, who will be doing some readings of Mihri Hatun's poetry in Ottoman Turkish and English. ah © transcript Emily Beynon Welcome back to Ottoman History Podcast. Chris Grayton here with Didem Havlioglu. We're talking about her new book out from Syracuse University Press entitled Mihri Hatun, Performance, Gender Bending, and Subversion in Ottoman Intellectual History. If you'd like to find that book or learn more about our topic, make sure to visit our website, OttomanHistoryPodcast.com. We've got a link and a bibliography for today's conversation.

Didem, we've been talking about how Mehri Hatun wasn't just an Ottoman woman poet, but that much of what she was doing, much of what she was introducing into the Ottoman literature, and much of the subversiveness of her work came from the very fact that she was a woman, and very consciously so in her work and in her social life. So let's finish up this interview by doing a couple of readings of Mihri Hatun's poetry, which even in the English translation, our listeners will definitely get a sense of who she was.

But we're also going to do something that you won't find in the book, which is published in English, which is have the Ottoman original as well. So tell us about the first selection we're going to be hearing very briefly and then let's get right into it. First of all, they can find the original in transcription in Ottoman archive project. Maybe we can have a link. project. Maybe we can have a link. So the first poem I'd like to read is one that reflects the intellectual friendships she had and the love affairs and the gossips in these biographical

dictionaries and also what happens when a woman expresses her desire in poetry. So here it goes. First the Ottoman. Altyazı M.K. Kalmadırız bana meylim, geçmişem gılmandan. Şüphesiz nadan o eptel, cilfi bir idraktır. Ehli şiir içre, seni ye görmeyen Selmandan. Sen yalandan hatemi aşık geçersin mihriye. Sümme vallahi, seni mihriye sever oğlandan. Alright, very nice. Enjoyed that. Now let's, for the English-only audience out there, we've got a translation which will elucidate some of the images that we just heard in the Ottoman Turkish a little bit further as well.

like a breath of life reached my dead body. Your sweet lips, Farhad, became crazy at heart for it. He would give up life and this world, but never give it up. Parted from you, I bent my body like a signet. I was hit on the head by a stone of reproach, made of coral. When the morning breeze comes to the rosebed of your cheek, beloved. The whole world smells sweetly of hyacinth and sweet herbs. My dear, since I saw you, oh lord of beauties, in your street, I have had no desire for paradise and have given up beautiful boys. He is ignorant, vastly clownish and ignorant. Who doesn't consider you superior to Salman al-Sawaji? Oh, Hatemi, you lied to Mihri when you played the lover. By God, she loves you better than any boy.

All right, thank you for that reading. Let's pick that apart a little and we'll start with, I think, from the bottom. And we'll start with, I think, from the bottom. The last line of the poem, Mihri says that she loves Hatemi more than any boy. What does she mean by that? Right. We talked a little bit about the ideal beauty, the ideal representation of beloved in poetry. So first of all, Hatemi is Mu'adeh Abdurrahman Chalibi. Hatemi is his pen name.

He apparently also produced, composed poetry. And from this poem, from the first cup that we understand, he sends some lyrics to Mihri, but it didn't survive. We don't know. She just mentions so that we know.

Again, Gazelle is a, maybe I should have said earlier, Gazelle is a love song, and it is basically yearning of the lover to unite with the beloved, right? So it is basically that. But this one is specifically dedicated to Hatemi. And she, as you said, she is clearly, she says she loves him better than any boy could. And so as we talked about before, the beloved is normally a boy. A boy. And she says that clearly. But of course, a boy is an abstract beauty, right? Or an idea of a beauty.

She, I think, presents herself as a real beloved here. Real meaning, you know, is a real time, real life beloved. Because they were friends, we know. And there's this gossip about this love relationship between them. Who knows? Maybe they were real lovers. But she is presenting herself as an alternative, a better alternative to the boy.

So she's pretty much showing us she's very aware of her gender in this whole world. She says, I'm way better than a boy. And she also says that she's given up young boys. This poem is not written for a young boy. It's written for Hatemi, who's an adult man. Adult man, exactly. So, right, I think she's very much conscious about the construction of gender in this discourse. And she doesn't shy away from challenging it.

And also, this poem shows us how poetry is a reflection of real life and reflects this relationship between them, either as colleagues or friends. But basically, the poem reflects that relationship. ends, but basically the poem reflects that relationship. And so this is one of the arguments or discussions I have in this book. You know, can poetry reflect real life? And this is a good example. Actually, it can.

Yeah, it's almost like she's daring him to make it real. And our listeners will have to read the book to find out more about what Didem Havlilo thinks about this. But we do want to do one more poetry reading before we wrap up this conversation. So the second one is also, I picked this one again as a follow-up to the first one because this one also shows poetry can reflect real life. It really matters how we read it.

Okay, first the Ottoman Turkish. Dar rifatte safa ve zevk ile Leylu Nehar, Sahne sıhhatte güzel hanımla sohbet yaraşır. Ol vücudu nazeninden ırak olsun elem, Düşmenine hane-i gam içre mihnet yaraşır. Teb niçin tutar seni, tutsun rakibi kafiri, Sana sıhhatler adına renc-ü zillet yaraşır. Tiyi kah ile adının başını kat itmeye, Zâtına cüret ve hem bazına kuvvet yaraşır. Ney gibi inleyen herdem hasud olsun müdam,

Çengü kanun ile herdem sana işret yaraşır. Hak bağışlasın ilahi seni ol validene, Kim onun bir tanesisin sana rifat yaraşır. Alright, and now here's the English. At every moment, good health is fitting for you, the Blessed One. At every instant, comfort is fitting for that pure body of yours. In a sublime dwelling, night and day, with joy and pleasure, converse with that, with a lovely woman in the health-fitting courtyard. May pain be distant from that delicate body of yours, for your enemy, torment in the house of grief is fitting.

Why does the fever grip you? Let it grip your infidel rival. For you, good health. For your enemy, pain and degradation are fitting. In order to cut off the head of your enemy with the sword of wrath, for your boldness and for your arm, strength are fitting. May the one who envies you ever wail like the reed flute. For you, merrymaking with harp and dulcimer

is fitting. May God spare your life for your mother, whose one and only you are. For you, eminence is fitting. Praise God, Mihri, your well-wisher could visit you. Those who see you say, to you, such pillars of prosperity are fitting. Okay, so what's the story behind that? So what is significant about this poem, So what is significant about this poem, there is a mention of the beloved's mother in the picture. On the seventh couplet, she says, may God spare your life for your mother, who is one and only you are. So this is a very unusual depiction of the beloved. First of all, he is sick. So she's probably paying a visit to get well wish card kind of poem, I think. And there is, if we can imagine the background of the poem and how it's performed in a setting,

there must be the mother in the picture too. So I think this poem reflects how poetry is performed in a majorly setting and there are people around. And when probably a woman poet does that, she pays attention to the woman in the picture as well. So, you know, why she mentions the valide of the mother of the beloved here is a personal choice, I think, or the way she sees the world, the way her world is at this time. This can be very well a female court, right?

And maybe the beloved is a boy and a sick child, and she visits. It can be the prince himself when he's sick, she's visiting. So I'm, of course, building up this story behind this poem, but it is possible that this poem is recited in that way. And again, it is very unusual to depict the perfect beloved as a sick and weak person, right? Or who also has this, you know, the childlike relationship

or as a child to a mother after all. So this is also a new angle, a new perspective to look at, the perfect beloved who is not very perfect in this poem. Right, and so this is another one of the selections from Mihri Hatun's poetry that survived, that not only place her in sort of a social context, right, trying to imagine for whom the poetry was written, both in terms of who it's dedicated to, but also who's listening in terms of possibly men and women being there and what her unique position as a woman in this social space brought to her work. So on that note, we'll have to conclude our interview with Didem Havliolu about her new book about Mihri Hatun. Didem, it was so great to have you back on the podcast.

It was my pleasure. It was great. I really enjoyed this conversation, and I really like the book. I especially want to alert our listeners that Dr. Havlil's new book contains over 20 pages of translated poetry of Mihri Hatun. So in addition to doing all that work, reconstructing the biography of this really ignored figure in Ottoman literature, and all of that great analysis about gender bending and subversion, we've also just got a lot of good primary source material that make great reading

for those who want to get a glimpse into an Ottoman woman's writing from the early modern period, or perhaps use them with students in the classroom. woman's writing from the early modern period and or perhaps use them with students in the classroom so it's an interesting book mihri hatun performance gender bending and subversion in ottoman intellectual history from syracuse university press samir mahti ali says the book shows how mihri hatun used her marginal position to hack an insular putatively hyper masculine poetic discourse to become a central figure in the canon using primarily wit and erotic humor. Irvin Jameel Shick, a friend of the podcast, says Mihri Hatun was a talented and prolific poet, a woman in a male-dominated occupation who nevertheless managed to find

her own unique voice through humor, satire, and gender mending. A fascinating account. And Walter Andrews, already mentioned in the podcast, got a shout out, says this is a path-breaking book. So high praise from some good scholars in the field. I invite all of our listeners to check out the book about Mehri Hatun. Visit our website, ottomanhistorypodcast.com, where you'll get a link. You'll find some other material for the bibliography, as we always have, and you'll find a lot of other great episodes dealing with the themes of women, gender, and sex in Ottoman history, which is now a very important subset of our offerings. Didem Havliyola was one of our first guests on that topic way back in 2012. So many thanks to Didem once again for coming on. Thanks to the University of Virginia Corcoran Department of History for sponsoring D-Dem's visits today and making this

recording possible. I want to thank you all for listening, invite you to join us on Facebook and be in touch and comment and converse with your other Ottoman History Podcast community members. That's all for this episode. Join us next time. Thank you. you