Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilün

Mushaf-ı ruhsârı eyler tab‘-ı hoş-güftâr şerh
Tercemân-ı elf-yâdur kim eyler esrâr şerh
Vâkıf-ı esrârdır kim gûşe-i meyhânede
Tâlib-i ruhsâre eyler âyet-i dîdâr şerh
Müşkilât-ı ‘aşkı idrâk eylemek mümkin değil
Remziyâne kılmasa ger gamze-i dil-dâr şerh
Şerh-i şehdâb-ı lebin kand-i mükerrerdir meger
Fârig olmaz dil dem-â-dem kim kılur tekrâr şerh
Sâye-i sevdâda ey Seyyid Nigârî her ne var
Hamdü li'llâh eyledik esrâr-ı Mecnûn-dâr şerh

In English

1. The sweet-spoken nature writes a commentary on the Quran-copy of (the beloved's) cheek; it is the interpreter of all the letters from alif to yâ, who expounds the secrets. (The sense of the second line is uncertain.)

2. He who, in the corner of the tavern, expounds the verse of the face to one who seeks the cheek is a knower of secrets.

3. It is impossible to grasp the difficulties of love unless the beloved's glance expounds them in signs.

4. The commentary on the honeyed draught of your lip must be twice-refined sugar (kand-i mükerrer); the heart never ceases to expound it again and again.

5. O Seyyid Nigârî, whatever lies in the shade of passion, praise be to God, we have expounded the secrets that Majnun kept. (This rendering of the second line is tentative.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Şerh, in Ottoman learning, was the line-by-line explanation of a text. Commentaries were written on the books taught in the madrasa, on the Masnavi, on the divan of Hafez, on the Fusûs al-hikam, and obscure passages were solved through them. In this five-couplet ghazal Nigârî treats the beloved's face as a text awaiting its commentary. In the first couplet the cheek is a mushaf, a copy of the Quran; the one who explains it is the interpreter of all the letters "from alif to yâ", from the first letter of the alphabet to the last. In the second couplet this text has a verse, "âyet-i dîdâr", the verse of the face, and one who knows the secrets expounds it in the corner of the tavern to the man who seeks the beloved.

Reading the beloved's face like a book is a familiar image of divan poetry: the brows are likened to letters, the mole to a dot, the down on the cheek to lines of script. Nigârî widens the image around the word şerh and changes the commentator in each couplet. In the third couplet only the beloved's glance can open the difficulties of love, and it too speaks not openly but "remziyâne", in signs.

"Kand-i mükerrer" in the fourth couplet has two senses. As a term it is the name of the purest sugar, boiled and refined twice. "Mükerrer" also means repeated. The poet likens the taste of expounding the beloved's lip to this sugar and at once says that the heart repeats the commentary without pause; the two senses of the word meet in the second line. The last text to receive a commentary is Majnun's secrets. Sevdâ means both love and, in the old medicine, the black bile that leads to madness; in its shade the secrets Majnun carried have been explained. The final "hâ" (ح) of "şerh" ties the ghazal to that letter's section.

Bibliography

Online sources