Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Nazar kıl ey gazâlim ‘âşıkın gör kim ne meftûndur
Tutupdur kûh u sahrânı gezer âvâre mecnûndur
Dem-â-dem âh ider cânım döker kan çeşm-i giryânım
Leb-i la‘lin temennâsıyla çün-kim bağrı pür-hûndur
Sorup hâl-i perîşânım nigârım bir dem ihsân it
Şarâb-ı şehd-i la‘linden şifâ kim derdim efzûndur
Giriftârem esîrem mübtelâyem zâr-ı meftûnem
Ki zülfün dâmdır u gamzen belâdır çeşmin efsûndur
Uzaldım gayrlardan hamdü li'llâh ragbetim kesdim
Hayâl-ender-hayâlin tâ derûn-ı dilde mahzûndur
Şarâb-ı feyz-i la‘linden süzülmüş şi‘r-i şîrînim
Hevâ-yı serv-i mevzûnunla tab‘ım bile mevzûndur
Kiçek çûn u çerâdan söylemen meh-pâreler adın
Beni rüsvây-ı ‘âlem eyleyen bir mâh-ı bî-çûndur
Ne anlar çekmeyen mey olmayan sevdâ giriftârı
Nigârîyi ki ol kenz-i hafîdir dürr-i meknûndur

In English

1. O my gazelle, look, see your lover, how enthralled he is; he has taken to mountain and desert and wanders, a vagrant Majnun.

2. Every moment my soul sighs, my weeping eye sheds blood; for its breast is full of blood from longing for your ruby lip.

3. My beloved (nigârım), ask after my scattered state and be generous for a moment; my pain grows, give a cure from the honeyed wine of your ruby lip.

4. I am a captive, a prisoner, afflicted, a moaning enthralled one; for your tress is a snare, your glance a calamity, your eye a spell.

5. Praise be to God, I have drawn away from others and cut off my desire; your image within image is stored like treasure deep in my heart.

6. My sweet poetry has been strained from the wine of grace of your ruby lip; through passion for your well-proportioned cypress, even my nature is metrical.

7. Do not speak the names of moon-fragment beauties with "how" and "why"; the one who made me the disgrace of the world is a moon beyond "how" (beyond compare). (The sense of the couplet is uncertain.)

8. What does one who has not drunk wine, who is not captive to passion, understand of Nigârî, who is a hidden treasure, a concealed pearl?

Literary and Historical Commentary

In the sixth couplet the word "mevzûn" comes twice and with two meanings. The beloved's cypress stature is mevzûn, that is, well-proportioned, shapely; the poet's nature is mevzûn, that is, it speaks in metre. Poetry written in quantitative metre was called "manzûm and mevzûn". Nigârî ties the measure of his poetry to the measure of the beloved's stature: the grace of the cypress has passed into his nature, and so his poetry has metre. In the first line of the same couplet the source of poetry is shown with a second image; sweet poetry has been strained from the wine of grace on the beloved's lip.

The last couplet uses two Sufi phrases for the poet himself. "Kenz-i hafî", the hidden treasure, rests on a sacred hadith much cited in Sufism: "I was a hidden treasure; I loved to be known, and I created the world." "Dürr-i meknûn", the concealed pearl, is a Quranic image describing the beauties of paradise. The poet says that one who drinks no wine and is not captive to passion cannot understand him; to know Nigârî one must pass along his road.

"Mahzûn" in the fifth couplet is double as well. The word mostly means sorrowful; but "hazîne", treasure, comes from the same root, and here the beloved's image is stored deep in the heart like a treasure. The fourth couplet counts the beloved's three weapons: the tress is a snare, the glance a calamity, the eye a spell. "Bî-çûn" in the seventh couplet means beyond "how", beyond qualification, and is mostly said of God; the poet gives the epithet to the moon who has disgraced him. With the couplet unexplained in the edition, its sense cannot be fixed with certainty. The refrain is "-dur", and the rhymes are meftûn, mecnûn, pür-hûn, efzûn, efsûn, mahzûn, mevzûn, bî-çûn and meknûn.

Bibliography

Online sources