Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Müfte‘ilün Fâ‘ilün Müfte‘ilün Fâ‘ilün

Bağrımı pür-hûn idüp saldı beni kana ruh
Yakdı ciger-gâhımı lâle gibi yana ruh
Şehd-i lebin sâyesi çeşme-i cân-bahş hem
Tâb virür şems tek la‘l-i bedahşâne ruh
Subh dem-i feyzdir mihr tek ey dil uyan
Vakt-i seher fer virür hûrşîd-i rahşâna ruh
‘Âşık-ı mestâneyem vâlih-i peymâneyem
Tâ ki çalup ‘aklımı bahş kılup âna ruh
Âyine-i ândır âyet-i bî-fânîdir
Safha-i Kur’ândır dîde-i mestâna ruh
Eyle salâ ey gönül ‘âşık-ı dîdâreye
Bahş-ı ferâvan ider yüz açup ihsâna ruh
Yakmış idi gönlümü Mîr Nigârî ezel
İmdi yanup yandurur kasd kılup câna ruh
Reşk-dih-i aydır hûrşîd-i bî-tâydır
Nûr-ı dil-ârâydır server-i hûbâna ruh

In English

1. The cheek filled my breast with blood and cast me into blood; it set my liver on fire so that it burns like a tulip.

2. The shade of the honey of your lip is also a life-giving spring; the cheek gives lustre like the sun to the ruby of Badakhshan.

3. Morning is the time of grace; O heart, wake like the sun; at dawn the cheek gives brightness to the shining sun.

4. I am a drunken lover, enraptured by the goblet, until the cheek steals my mind and bestows it on (that beauty). (The second line has been understood approximately.)

5. The cheek is the mirror of "ân" (indefinable charm), an imperishable verse; to the drunken eye the cheek is a page of the Quran.

6. O heart, call the lover of the face; the cheek, uncovering itself, bestows abundant bounty. (The sense of the second line is uncertain.)

7. Mîr Nigârî, the cheek had burned my heart in pre-eternity; now, aiming at the soul, it burns and sets on fire.

8. The cheek of the chief of beauties makes the moon jealous; it is the peerless sun, the light that adorns the heart.

Literary and Historical Commentary

The refrain is the Persian "ruh", cheek, and in all eight couplets of the ghazal the cheek is named together with the sun. In the second couplet it lends lustre to the ruby of Badakhshan. According to an old belief, precious stones ripened inside the earth under the influence of the sun and took their colour from it; Badakhshan in northern Afghanistan was famous for its ruby mines. The poet makes use of this belief: what gives the ruby its colour is not the sun but the beloved's cheek. In the third couplet he goes a step further; at dawn the sun in the sky too takes its brightness from the cheek. By the final couplet the cheek has become "hûrşîd-i bî-tâ", the peerless sun, and makes the moon jealous.

The fifth couplet reads the cheek like a sacred text: it is an imperishable verse, and to the drunken eye a page of the Quran. Likening the face to a copy of the Quran and its features to lines of script is a familiar image of divan poetry; here the eye that reads is drunk, that is, an eye that looks with love.

"Ezel" in the seventh couplet is pre-eternity, the time before time that has no beginning. In Sufism the pledge the souls gave to God at the moment of creation, the "Gathering of Elest", is placed in this pre-eternity. The poet says his heart burned for the cheek then: love did not begin in this world but in pre-eternity, and it continues now. The pen name stands in this couplet too, and only one more follows it.

In Arabic script the refrain closes on "hı" (خ). In the rhyme, Turkish words such as "kana, yana" are lined up with Persian and Arabic words such as "bedahşâne, rahşâne, mestâna, ihsâna, hûbâna".

Bibliography

Online sources