Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilün

Yâd-ı ruhsârın ile dîde-i ter kan ağlar
Fikr-i dîdârın ile ‘âşık-ı sûzân ağlar
Bezm-i rindâne düşer şûriş ü gavgã gulgul
Vakt kim vasfın ile mutrib-i hoş-hân ağlar
Saçılur hûn-ı ciger dîde-i giryânımdan
Hasret-i la‘lin-ile kim dil-i biryân ağlar
Şevk-ı ruhsârın ile âteşe yanmış gönlüm
Tutuşup dâğ-ı ciger-sûzıla her ân ağlar
Yol itirmiş meger ol kãfile-i menzil-i yâr
Nâliş eyler ki derâ kãfile sârbân ağlar
Bî-habersin niçün üftâdelerin hâlinden
Yetür ey Rüstem-i kîndâr ki bî-cân ağlar
Virmedi bu meger ol zülf-i girih-ger-i nigâr
Tutuşup Mîr Nigârîyi gazel-hân ağlar
Kerbelâ âteşi eyvâh ciger-gâhımdan
Baş virüp dil yakılur sîne yanar cân ağlar

In English

1. Recalling your cheek, the tearful eye weeps blood; thinking of seeing your face, the burning lover weeps.

2. When the sweet-voiced minstrel weeps as he describes you, frenzy, quarrel and clamour fall upon the gathering of the rinds.

3. The blood of the liver is scattered from my weeping eye whenever the heart, roasted with longing for your ruby lip, weeps.

4. My heart, burned in the fire of yearning for your cheek, catches flame with the liver-burning brand and weeps every moment.

5. That caravan bound for the beloved's lodging must have lost its way; the bell laments, the caravan and its leader weep.

6. Why do you know nothing of the state of the fallen? O vengeful Rustam, come to their aid, for the lifeless one weeps.

7. That knotted tress of the beloved must not have granted this; catching fire, it sets Mîr Nigârî, singer of ghazals, weeping. (The couplet's meaning is unclear.)

8. Alas, the fire of Karbala (rises) from the depths of my liver; giving its head, the heart burns, the breast burns, the soul weeps.

Literary and Historical Commentary

All the tears are tied to one place in the final couplet, which follows the pen name: Karbala. The martyrdom of Husayn at Karbala in 680, with his family and companions, has been mourned in elegies across the Islamic world for centuries. Nigârî was a sayyid who traced his descent to Husayn, and love of the Prophet's family is openly voiced in his divan. In this couplet the fire of Karbala rises from the poet's liver; the words "baş virüp", giving the head, recall the beheading of Husayn. While the first seven couplets describe tears shed in longing for the beloved, the last, with the same refrain "ağlar", weeps, turns the ghazal into a scene of mourning.

The refrain sets someone different weeping in every couplet: the tearful eye, the burning lover, the minstrel, the roasted heart, the caravan leader, the lifeless one. The fifth couplet shows a caravan that has lost its way. The "derâ", the bell at the head of the caravan, becomes the cry of a company lost on the road to the beloved's lodging, and the caravan master weeps too. In divan poetry the sound of the caravan bell is a sign of parting and of the journey. In the second couplet the minstrel's weeping throws the gathering into turmoil; here weeping is the sorrow a musician gives with his instrument and his voice.

The beloved is called "Rüstem-i kîndâr", vengeful Rustam, in the sixth couplet. Rustam is the great hero of Ferdowsi's Shahnameh; the beloved is as strong and as wrathful as he, while the lovers are "üftâde", fallen and lifeless. The poet asks this hero not to defeat the enemy who has struck him down, but simply to take notice of the state of the fallen.

Bibliography

Online sources