Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Gerçi sen tek gözüm gamzesi hûn-hâre yoh
Ben gibi ‘âlemde bir bağrı bütün pâre yoh
Dökdü benim başıma leşkerini gam kamu
‘Arsa-i ‘âlemde bir ben gibi gam-hâre yoh
‘Arsa-i ‘âlemde yok söylemezem ehl-i derd
Var velî ben gibi hîç güni kara yoh
Firkat odundan yaman derd beterdir bana
Mahrem ola söyleye derd-i dili yâre yoh
Görmedim ‘âlemde bir hâzik-i emrâz-ı dil
Sabr idelim neyleyem derdimize çâre yoh
Pertev-i ruhsârına tâb getürmez baka
Dîde-i bîçârede tâkat-ı nezzâre yoh
Âhım odı âheni Mîr Nigârî yakar
Vechi nedir bilmezem te’sîri dildâre yoh

In English

1. True, there is no blood-drinking glance in my eye like yours; but in the world there is no one like me whose breast is torn to pieces through and through.

2. Grief has poured its whole army upon my head; in the field of the world there is no one who suffers grief like me.

3. I do not say there are no people of pain in the field of the world; there are, but there is none whose day is as black as mine.

4. There is a pain worse for me than the fire of separation, a terrible one: there is no confidant to tell my heart's pain to the beloved.

5. I have not seen in the world a skilled physician of the heart's ailments; let us be patient, what can I do, there is no cure for our pain.

6. (The eye) cannot bear to look at the radiance of your cheek; the helpless eye has no strength to gaze.

7. Mîr Nigârî, the fire of my sigh burns iron; I do not know the reason, it has no effect on the beloved.

Literary and Historical Commentary

"Yoh" in the refrain is the Azerbaijani pronunciation of the word "yok", there is none. Since it is written in Arabic letters with "hı" (خ), it has entered this section of the divan. The poet has kept the word as it sounded in his own mouth and built the ghazal on a count of absences: there is none with a breast torn like mine, none who suffers grief like me, none whose day is so black, no confidant to tell the beloved my pain, no physician of the heart, no cure, no strength to gaze, no effect of the sigh upon the beloved.

The third couplet corrects itself in the middle of this count. The lover does not say there are no people of pain in the world; there are, but none has a day as black as his. The exaggeration of the first two couplets thus turns into a measured comparison. In the fourth couplet too the heaviest pain is not separation but loneliness: worse than the fire of separation is the lack of a "mahrem", a confidant, to carry the heart's pain to the beloved.

"Âh", sigh, and "âhen", iron, sound alike, and the last couplet makes use of it. The fire of the lover's sigh melts even iron, yet the beloved's heart is harder than iron and is not touched by this fire. In divan poetry the beloved's heart is likened to stone and iron and the lover's sigh to fire; Nigârî ends the comparison by turning it into a question whose answer he does not know.

Immediately after this ghazal the divan places one in the same metre and with the same "-âre" rhyme whose refrain is "çoh", many. The words "none" and "many" make the two ghazals counterparts of each other.

Bibliography

Online sources