Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilün

Hecr-i kâkül rûzgârım tîre târ eyler bana
Firkat-i hâl âb u dânem zehr-i mâr eyler bana
Gerdiş-i gerdûn ya baht-ı siyâhım neylesün
Her ne eyler firkat-i ruhsâr-ı yâr eyler bana
Tâlibân içre beni dil-hasteni mümtâz idüp
Ni‘met-i derdin dem-â-dem bî-şümâr eyler bana
Bilmezem ‘özriyyetim dünyâya geldim gelmedim
Gevher-i derdi sehâb-ı gam-nisâr eyler bana
Ey Nigârî nice efgãn itmezem ol gonçe gül
Bâg-ı sevdâ içre kim ‘arz-ı ‘izâr eyler bana

In English

1. Separation from your forelock makes my days dark to me; separation from your beauty spot turns my water and grain into snake venom for me.

2. What can the turning sphere or my black fortune do; whatever is done to me, separation from my beloved's cheek does it.

3. (That separation) singles me out, sick at heart, among the seekers and gives me the blessing of its pain countlessly every moment.

4. I do not know my state, whether I have come into the world or not; the cloud that rains grief scatters pearls of pain upon me. (The meaning of the word "‘özriyyet" is not clear; the line has been understood approximately.)

5. O Nigârî, how can I not cry out; that rosebud shows me her cheek in the garden of passion.

Literary and Historical Commentary

The whole weight of this short five-couplet ghazal is borne by the word "firkat", separation, and the refrain "eyler bana" (does to me) says in every couplet that separation does something to the lover. The first couplet sets two images side by side. The beloved's forelock is black, and to be apart from it darkens the lover's days; the colour passes from hair to time. In the second line the "hâl", the beauty spot on the face, is likened to a grain. In divan poetry the beauty spot is the grain of bait placed in the middle of a trap to catch birds; water and grain (âb u dâne) are also the bird's, and so a person's, daily bread. For the lover parted from the beauty spot, water and grain, that is, life itself, turn into snake venom.

The second couplet declares innocent the two agents who always take the blame in divan poetry, the turning sphere and black fortune. Whatever is done to the lover, separation is doing it. In the third couplet this separation turns into a blessing: it is what singles the lover out among the seekers and grants him countless pains. Counting pain as a favour links to the thought of the previous ghazal, that cruelty coming from God is joy.

The first line of the fourth couplet cannot be understood with certainty. The word "‘özriyyet" in the edition matches no known word; it might be "‘uzriyyet", the chaste, unconsummated love that Arabic literature associates with the tribe of Banû ‘Udhra, but this is a guess. The image of the second line is clear, however: the cloud of grief rains pearls of pain upon the lover; the old belief that a raindrop turns into a pearl is tied here to tears and to the worth of pain. At the close the beloved is a rosebud, and whenever she shows her cheek in the garden of passion the poet cannot keep from crying out. The short run of rhymes (târ, mâr, yâr, şümâr, nisâr, ‘izâr) gathers on "-âr", and its last link, "‘izâr", the cheek, belongs to the image of the rosebud.

Bibliography

Online sources