Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Zülf ile kim tutuşa çâh-ı zenahdâna düşer
‘Âsilık eyleyen elbet şehe zindâna düşer
Git gele saldı beni turra-i tarrâr belî
Beyledir her kimin elbet işi dîvâna düşer
Ne kemendârdır ol çeşm-i çep-endâz kim ol
Ata ger gamze okun bağrı yarar câna düşer
Yakdı bir cilve ile hâne-i ‘akl u dilimi
Eylese bürde eger rahne dîn îmâna düşer
Cân eger çıksa tenimden harem-i yâra konar
Habsden bülbül uça bâg-ı gülistâna düşer
Hâr u hâşâke rehinde meded ister gönlüm
Yapuşur çör çöpe her kimse ki ‘ummâna düşer
Yâd kıldıkca seninle olan ahvâlimizi
Kelb-âsâ dil-i ser-geştemiz efgãna düşer
Küşte-i gamzelerin şâm u seher kan ağlar
Teşne-i şehd-i lebin bağrın ezer kana düşer
Yine sayd eylemen ey turfe gazâlim söz ilen
Seni bu Mîr Nigârî-yi gazel-hâna düşer
Merd-i merdâne o kaplan-sıfat Moskof ilen
Eylemek ceng ü cidâl şîr-i Dağıstâna düşer

In English

1. Whoever grapples with the tress falls into the well of the chin; whoever rebels against the king surely falls into the dungeon.

2. Yes, that thieving forelock has sent me back and forth; whoever's affairs are like this surely falls before the court.

3. What a lasso-thrower is that sidelong-glancing eye: if it shoots the arrow of its glance, it splits the breast and falls into the soul.

4. With one coquettish move she burned the house of my reason and my heart; were she to lift the veil, a breach would fall in religion and faith.

5. If the soul leaves my body it will alight in the beloved's sanctuary; if the nightingale flies from its prison, it falls into the rose garden.

6. On her road my heart asks help of thorn and straw; whoever falls into the ocean clutches at twigs and rubbish.

7. Whenever we recall our times with you, our bewildered heart falls to howling like a dog.

8. The one slain by your glances weeps blood morning and evening; the one who thirsts for the honey of your lip crushes his breast and falls into blood.

9. O my rare gazelle, to hunt you again with words falls to this Mîr Nigârî, the singer of ghazals.

10. To make war and battle like a man with that tiger-natured Muscovite falls to the lion of Daghestan.

Literary and Historical Commentary

A world wholly apart from the divan's language of passion opens at the very end, in the couplet that follows the pen name: "To make war like a man with that tiger-natured Muscovite falls to the lion of Daghestan." Moskof, Muscovite, is the name used for the Russians. In the Caucasus a long resistance to Russian expansion lasted through the middle of the nineteenth century, and its best-known leader was Sheikh Shamil. Nigârî's spiritual guide İsmâil Şirvânî belonged to this Naqshbandi milieu, and studies write that the movement under Sheikh Shamil drew on it. Nigârî himself struggled against Russia with his disciples, emigrated to Ottoman lands under threat of arrest, and fought in the Ottoman army in the Crimean War at the head of a cavalry unit. The couplet does not name Shamil, but the phrase "lion of Daghestan" lends itself to being read within this context.

The pen-name couplet just before it sets the two senses of the refrain side by side. For most of the ghazal "düşer" means falling into somewhere: into a well, a dungeon, a court, the soul, the ocean, blood. In the ninth couplet the same verb turns to the sense of "being someone's task", "falling to someone": to hunt the beloved with words falls to Nigârî, the singer of ghazals. The tenth keeps this second sense: fighting the Russians falls to the lion of Daghestan. The poet thus sets two duties side by side, one done with the pen, the other with the sword.

The first couplet names together the well and the dungeon, two places that recall the story of Joseph. Whoever is caught on the tress falls into the dimple of the beloved's chin; whoever rebels against the king is thrown into prison. The sixth couplet leans on the turn of a proverb: whoever falls into the ocean clutches at straws. On the beloved's road the heart asks help even of the meanest things, thorn and brushwood.

Bibliography

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