Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Ey gönül miftâh-ı mihr-ile olur esrâr feth
Bâb-ı muglâkãtı eyler kâse-i ser-şâr feth
Derd-i hicrân emr-i müşkildir meger lutf eyleyüp
Perde-i dîdârı bir gün eyleye dildâr feth
Eyleriz ferdâ kıyâmet perde-i dîdârını
İtmese dildâr şîrîn kılmasa dîdâr feth
Menzil-i dildâre irmek hayli müşkildir belî
Kılmasa der bend-i râhı râhı Mecnûn-vâr feth
Hergiz ey Mîr Nigârî rü’yet-i dildârı ben
Anlamazdım kılmasaydı âyet-i dîdâr feth

In English

1. O heart, secrets are opened with the key of love (mihr, which also means sun); the brimming bowl opens the door of things closed and hard to solve.

2. The pain of separation is a hard matter; perhaps one day the beloved will kindly open the veil of her face.

3. If the beloved shows no sweetness and does not uncover her face, tomorrow we shall raise doomsday over the veil of her face. (This rendering of the couplet is tentative.)

4. Yes, reaching the beloved's dwelling is very hard; unless (the lover), like Majnun, opens the dam of the road, the road that has been shut (he cannot arrive). (The edition gives no gloss; the sense is approximate.)

5. O Mîr Nigârî, had the verse of the face not opened it (to me), I would never have understood what it is to see the beloved.

Literary and Historical Commentary

The opening couplet of the ghazal was quoted on its own in Hüsameddin's entry on Nigârî in his Amasya Tarihi and was published on our site as a separate page, Couplet 7. There, since both lines end in the word "feth", it was guessed that the couplet was the opening of a ghazal with the refrain "feth"; Bilgin's edition confirms the guess. The ghazal has five couplets, and the two senses of the word "mihr" in the couplet, love and sun, were discussed in detail on that page. The two texts differ little in spelling: Hüsameddin writes "mihr ile", Bilgin "mihr-ile".

In the whole ghazal only one thing is waiting to be opened: the veil over the beloved's face. In the opening couplet love and the brimming bowl open the door of secrets; from the second couplet on what is to be opened is no longer a door but the "perde-i dîdâr", the veil of the face. Separation is a hard pain, and the lover hopes that one day the beloved will kindly uncover her face. In the third couplet the hope becomes a threat: if the beloved does not uncover her face, tomorrow doomsday will be raised. "Ferdâ" and "kıyâmet" side by side also recall "ferdâ-yı kıyâmet", the day of resurrection, a phrase common in divan poetry; that is the day when the veil will truly be lifted.

In the fourth couplet the road to the beloved's dwelling is shut, and the one who can open it is Majnun. The final couplet hands the work of opening to a verse: had the "âyet-i dîdâr", the verse of the face, not opened it, the poet would not have understood what it is to see the beloved. "Âyet" means both a verse of the Quran and a sign; set beside "feth" it also brings to mind the sura al-Fath, which begins "We have given you a manifest victory". In "Sâkî kim elde ayağ oynadı atdı ekdâh", the ghazal that opens this section of the divan, "Fettâh" and "miftâh" also stood in the rhyme; words of the same root link two ghazals at the beginning and the end of the section.

Bibliography

Online sources