Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Yanar cânım bu gün kim gelmedi dildârdan kâğız
Yarar bağrım eger gelmezse yarın yârdan kâğız
Külüng-i âh ile kûh-ı vücûdum târ-mâr eyler
Gönül ger gelmese dildâr-ı şîrîn-kârdan kâğız
Nesîm-i hoş-nefes benden güzâr eyler hicâbâne
Cevâbâne meger yok zülf-i ‘anber-bârdan kâğız
Yazup şerh-i dili bin dâğdır dâğ eyledim izhâr
Velî gelmez yine bir lâle-i ruhsârdan kâğız
Cevâbnâme yazamaz bilmezem bâ‘is nedir gerçi
Dem-â-dem eylerem irsâl âh u zârdan kâğız
Virüp tâb-ı harâret sîne-i sûzâne iletdim
Meger te’sîr ide feryâd-ı âteş-bârdan kâğız
Huzûr-ı şâhbâz-ı Kãf-ı istiğnâya gönderdim
Nigârî tab‘-zâde-tûtî-i eş‘ârdan kâğız

In English

1. My soul burns because no letter came from the beloved today; my breast will split if no letter comes from the beloved tomorrow.

2. If no letter comes from the beloved whose works are sweet, the heart will lay waste the mountain of my being with the pickaxe of sighs.

3. The sweet-breathed morning breeze passes me by in shame; it seems there is no letter in answer from the ambergris-scattering tress.

4. I wrote the commentary of my heart and showed a thousand wounds upon wounds; yet still no letter comes from a tulip cheek.

5. She cannot write an answer; I do not know the reason, though every moment I send letters of sighs and moans.

6. I sent (the letter), giving it the heat of my burning breast; perhaps a letter (written) of fire-raining cries will have an effect. (The sense of the couplet is uncertain.)

7. Nigârî, I sent a letter from the parrot of poems that my nature bore to the presence of the self-sufficient falcon of Mount Qaf. (This rendering of the couplet is tentative.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

The refrain "kâğız" means letter, and the word is written as Nigârî pronounced it in Azerbaijani Turkish. Since in Ottoman script it is written "كاغذ", with zâl, this ghazal opens the zâl section of the divan. Every couplet of the ghazal is tied to a letter awaited but not arriving: it has not come today, and if it does not come tomorrow the lover's breast will split. The morning breeze passes him in shame, for it has no answer from the beloved to give him. The lover, for his part, writes without pause: first the commentary of his heart, showing his wounds, then letters full of sighs and moans.

In the second couplet the story of Farhad is called up by a single word. The beloved is "şîrîn-kâr", one whose works are sweet; the word holds the name of Shirin, Farhad's beloved. If no letter comes, the lover will pull down the mountain of his own being with the "pickaxe of sighs". The pick with which Farhad cut through Bisitun is here turned against the lover himself.

The last couplet sends the letter to a fabulous recipient. "Kâf" is the legendary mountain believed to encircle the world and known as the home of the Anka bird. "İstiğnâ" is needing nothing, paying no heed to anyone; the self-sufficient falcon of Mount Qaf is the beloved who pays the lover no heed. The poet's letter comes from a parrot his nature has borne. In divan poetry the parrot is the bird of fine speech; the parrot of poetry and the falcon of Qaf are set against each other as two birds. The rhyme words run from names for the beloved (dildâr, yâr, ruhsâr) to the poet's own poems (eş‘âr).

Bibliography

Online sources