Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mefâ‘îlün Mefâ‘îlün Mefâ‘îlün Mefâ‘îlün

Mukayyed olmazam nâsıh sözünle ihtiyârım yoh
Karâr elden gidüp elde ki zülf-i zer-nigârım yoh
Degül bîhûde efgãnım ki artmış derd-i hicrânım
Harâb olmuş gülistânım yanımda gül-‘ızârım yoh
Ne gam gamdan eger gam-hârem olsaydı velî müşkil
Budur kim var bî-had gam velâkin gam-güsârım yoh
Yerimdir kûh u sahrâ söylemek dîvânedir zîrâ
Müdârâdır garaz günler geçirdim bir medârım yoh
Nigârî firkat içre dil çeker hasret yanar cânım
Ciger kanlar döker ağlar gözüm bir gayrı kârım yoh

In English

1. O adviser, I am not bound by your words, I have no will of my own; my peace has slipped from my hand, for I do not hold that gold-patterned tress of mine.

2. My lament is not in vain, my pain of separation has grown; my rose garden is ruined, my rose-cheeked one is not beside me.

3. What grief would grief be to me if I had a sharer of grief; but the difficulty is this: there is grief without bound, yet no one to console me.

4. My place is mountain and desert, for (in this state) speaking is madness; my aim is to get by, I have passed the days, I have no support. (This rendering of the couplet is tentative.)

5. Nigârî, in separation the heart suffers longing, my soul burns; the liver sheds blood, my eye weeps; I have no other work.

Literary and Historical Commentary

The third couplet rests on a fine difference between two similar words. "Gam-hâr" is one who eats grief, who shares it; "gam-güsâr" is one who scatters grief, who consoles. The lover does not complain of grief itself: had he a companion in grief, what would grief matter? The real difficulty is that grief is without bound and there is no one to lighten it. In divan poetry "gam-güsâr" is often an epithet for wine or the cupbearer; in the couplet the word describes the absence of a human being.

In the first couplet the "nâsıh", the adviser, is answered. The lover cannot be bound by his words, for his own will is not in his hands. The "zülf-i zer-nigâr", gold-patterned tress, of the second line also carries the word "nigâr" of the poet's pen name. In Persian nigâr means design, picture and, figuratively, the beloved; the pen name is derived from this word. Letting the tress slip from the hand is said together with letting peace slip from the hand: "karâr elden gidüp", peace has gone from the hand.

The ghazal is a short complaint of five couplets and the second ghazal with the refrain "yoh" in the hı section of the divan. Unlike the earlier one it is written in the "mefâ‘îlün" pattern, in long lines of four equal steps, and the rhyme is on the sound "-ârım": ihtiyârım, zer-nigârım, gül-‘ızârım, gam-güsârım, medârım, kârım. The possessive ending recurs at the end of each line, and the complaint stays always in the first person. For the fourth couplet the edition gives no help, and the rendering is a guess; the lover withdrawing to mountain and desert where speech is counted as madness recalls Majnun.

Bibliography

Online sources