Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Bakdıkça bana gamzelerin kanıma kaynar
Çeşmin susuyor bagr-ı pür-alkanımı görgeç

In English

1. Whenever they look at me, your glances seethe to have my blood; your eye, on seeing my breast full of blood, thirsts (for blood). (The word "susuyor" can be read in two ways, as "thirsts" and as "falls silent"; see the commentary.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

It is quoted as a single couplet. The lines end with "kaynar" and "görgeç" and do not rhyme; the couplet must be one of the couplets of a ghazal other than the matla. The form "görgeç" ("on seeing") is peculiar to Azerbaijani Turkish. Hüsameddin does not state the metre.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

In divan poetry the "gamze" is the beloved's languid sidelong glance, imagined as an arrow or dagger that sheds the lover's blood; the eye is a tyrant thirsting for blood. The couplet spreads this conceit over two lines: in the first, whenever the glances look at the lover they "seethe for my blood", that is, they long to shed it; in the second, the eye, on seeing the lover's breast full of blood, "susuyor".

The meaning of the second line depends on this word. In Azerbaijani Turkish and in Old Anatolian Turkish the verb "susamak" (to thirst) can also appear in the form "susuyor"; on this reading the eye, on seeing the breast full of blood, thirsts for blood, and a meaning arises in step with the seething of the glances. Read in the present-day sense of "susmak" (to fall silent), however, the eye finds nothing to say on seeing the lover's state; this sets up a contrast between the beloved's cruelty and bewilderment. That the couplet suggests both meanings at once creates an effect close to tevriye (double entendre); this interpretation is ours. There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) among the words "kan" (blood), "kaynamak" (to seethe) and "pür-alkan" (full of blood).

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