Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Ravza-i gülşende hecrindir cefâ-ender-cefâ
Gûşe-i külhanda vaslındır safâ-ender-safâ
Mihr-ender-mihrdir cevrin müdâm olsun bana
Nâz-ender-nâz çeşmindir vefâ-ender-vefâ
Güft ü gûyun sohbet-i bî-tâdur ammâ kim lebin
Şerbeti ey nâzenînimdir şifâ-ender-şifâ
Saymak olmaz ey sanem kurbân-ı çeşmün kim müdâm
Cân viren bî-gãye lâ yuhsâ fedâ-ender-fedâ
Sad sadâ itmezmiyem her lahza ün virmezmiyem
Var kim nây tenimde sad hevâ-ender-hevâ
Gerdiş-i gerdûn nice virmez sadâ kim bend bend
Ün virür Seyyid Nigârî sad sadâ-ender-sadâ
Bî-vefâ bu ‘âlem-i dünyâda kim bir yahşılıg
Her kime itdimse buldum bin belâ-ender-belâ

In English

1. In the paradise corner of the rose garden separation from you is cruelty upon cruelty; in a corner of the furnace-room union with you is joy upon joy.

2. Your tyranny is love within love, may it always be mine; the coquetry of your eye is coquetry within coquetry, faithfulness within faithfulness.

3. Your talk is a conversation without equal; but, O my graceful one, the sherbet of your lips is healing upon healing.

4. O idol, those who are sacrificed to your eye cannot be counted; for those who ceaselessly give their lives are numberless, sacrifice upon sacrifice.

5. Would I not cry out a hundred times every moment, would I not give voice; in the reed flute of my body there are a hundred longings (hevâ) upon longings.

6. How could the turning sphere not resound, when Seyyid Nigârî moans joint by joint, a hundred cries upon cries.

7. In this faithless world, to whomever I did a kindness, I found a thousand calamities upon calamities.

Literary and Historical Commentary

All the rhymes of the ghazal are built on the same Persian pattern: a word, the particle "ender" (within) and a repetition of the same word. Cefâ-ender-cefâ, safâ-ender-safâ, vefâ-ender-vefâ, şifâ-ender-şifâ, fedâ-ender-fedâ, hevâ-ender-hevâ, sadâ-ender-sadâ, belâ-ender-belâ. The pattern expresses something piled up layer upon layer and creates a sense of number and intensity throughout the fourteen-line poem. Repeated rhymes of this kind are known in Persian poetry; Nigârî applies the device to a different feeling in each couplet.

The opening couplet rests on one of the favourite contrasts of divan poetry. The rose garden (gülşen) and the külhan, the furnace-room of a bathhouse or a heap of ash and rubbish, are the two extremes of beauty and squalor. For the lover parted from the beloved the rose garden becomes cruelty; together with her, even a corner of the furnace-room is joy. The worth of a place depends on whether the beloved is there. The second couplet applies the same reversal to the beloved's conduct: her tyranny is love within love, her coquetry faithfulness within faithfulness.

"Lâ yuhsâ" in the fourth couplet is Arabic for "cannot be counted" and recalls the naat at the beginning of the divan built on "lâ uhsî senâen"; there praises, here those sacrificed to the beloved's eye, cannot be counted. In the fifth couplet the reed-flute image appears once more: the poet's body is a ney and the "hevâ" within it is both breath and desire. In the sixth couplet giving voice "bend bend", joint by joint, recalls the joints of the ney; even the sphere resounds with this voice.

The poem continues for one more couplet after the pen-name couplet; the rule that the pen name comes in the final couplet is broken here. This last couplet leaves the language of love and turns to a plain complaint against the world: in the faithless world, whoever I was kind to, I met with calamity. The word "yahşılıg" (kindness) derives from "yahşı" (good) in Azerbaijani Turkish and carries the poet's spoken language into the last line of the poem.

Bibliography

Online sources