Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Mürg-i gönül ol turra-i tarrâra dolaşmış
Yâ Rab ne belâdır bana bu zülf-i dil-âvîz

In English

1. The bird of the heart has become entangled in that thievish forelock; O Lord, what a calamity for me is this heart-ensnaring lock of hair.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

It is quoted as a single couplet. The lines end with "dolaşmış" and "dil-âvîz" and do not rhyme with each other; the couplet must be one of the couplets of a ghazal other than the matla. Hüsameddin does not state the metre.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The couplet rests on one of the best-known conceits of divan poetry: the tresses are a snare and the heart a bird caught in it. "Turra" is the forelock falling on the brow, "tarrâr" a pickpocket, a trickster; the forelock is likened to a thief who steals the heart. The word "dil-âvîz" carries both the sense of "clinging to the heart, attracting the heart" and that of "on which hearts hang"; the length and curls of the tresses are imagined as a place where hearts are left hanging.

The similarity of sound between "turra" and "tarrâr" is a cinas (paronomasia) made with words whose letters are close to each other. There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) around the snare and the bird among the words "mürg" (bird), "dolaşmak" (to become entangled), "turra" and "zülf" (tresses). The exclamation "Yâ Rab ne belâdır" ("O Lord, what a calamity") in the second line carries complaint and admiration together; while the lover laments the calamity that has befallen him, he also praises the beauty that binds him to the beloved.

Historical Context

Hüsameddin writes that Nigârî's divan contains fine naats (poems in praise of the Prophet), lofty ghazals and kıt‘as voicing burning, inward griefs, but that among them there are also poetic flaws and literary oddities that do not conform to the rules of the language, which should be counted as expressions peculiar to the poet; he then lists nine pieces in a row, introducing them with "for example". He does not distinguish which couplet is given as an example of beauty and which of a flaw. For the poet's literary personality see Nigârî: Poet and Works.

Bibliography

Online sources