Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mef‘ûlü Mefâ‘îlü Mefâ‘îlü Fe‘ûlün

Ey dil ne revâdır sana bu râhat-ı bî–câ
Destinde degül zülf ü gözünde ruh–ı zîbâ
Bülbül gibi efgãn eyle pervâne gibi yan
Ger ‘âşık isen şâm u seher ey dil-i şeydâ
Ger vâkıf-ı ‘aşk olsayıdı sâkin-i eflâk
Ser-geşte serâsîme düşerdi yere bî-pâ
Bilmem ‘acebâ lutfı mı yâ kahrı mı yâ
Bir tâze çıban oldı cigerde yine peydâ
Cûş eyledi ol dem ki derûnumda harâret
Söndürmedi bu âteşi çekdim nice deryâ
Kullâb-ı telin perçemi çıkmaz bu sînemden
Ger çerh ser-â-pâ düşe ‘âlem ola ber-pâ
Cân virmedigimden ser–i kûyunda ki hâlâ
Sînemde yanar meş‘ale kelme-i heyhâ
Uğraşma dehânıyla dilâ çekme belâ kim
Müşkil görünür keşf olunmaz bu mu‘ammâ
Ey Mîr Nigârî bu ne esrâr-ı celîdir
Kim degmedi bu ‘aynıma ol şems-i hüveydâ

In English

1. O heart, how can this misplaced ease be fitting for you, when there is no curl in your hand and no beautiful cheek before your eye?

2. O love-mad heart, if you are a lover, cry out like the nightingale morning and evening, burn like the moth.

3. Had the dwellers of the heavens known of love, they would fall to the ground giddy, bewildered and unable to stand.

4. I do not know whether it is his favour or his wrath; once again a fresh boil has appeared on my liver.

5. When the heat within me boiled up at that moment, I drank many seas but could not put out this fire.

6. The hook of your lock, your forelock, will not come out of this breast of mine, even if the sphere collapsed from head to foot and doomsday broke.

7. Because I did not give my soul at your door, the torch of the word "heyhât" (alas) still burns in my breast. (The line is not clearly understood.)

8. O heart, do not struggle with her mouth, do not invite calamity; for this riddle looks hard and cannot be solved.

9. O Mîr Nigârî, what a manifest secret this is, that that manifest sun never touched my eye.

Literary and Historical Commentary

The fourth couplet brings an unexpected word into the ornate world of divan poetry: "çıban", a boil. The wound of love in divan poetry is usually a dâğ, a wound opened with red-hot iron, or an arrow wound; Nigârî says instead that a fresh boil has appeared on the liver. He does not know whether this wound is favour or wrath; if one recalls that the ghazals "Belâ-yı ‘aşkıla" and "Fârig olmazlar" count calamity a favour, the answer to the question is clear. The bodily ordinariness of the word makes the pain more concrete.

The ghazal opens and closes with the poet addressing his own heart. At the outset there is a reproach to the heart: sitting at ease does not suit it while it has no curl in hand and no lovely face before its eye. The second couplet shows the heart two examples: to cry out like the nightingale, to burn like the moth. The third carries this love to the heavens: if the angels who dwell in the spheres knew love, they would fall to the ground in giddiness. The idea that love is a secret that raises man above the angels is often worked in Sufi poetry.

In the eighth couplet the beloved's mouth is likened to a riddle. In divan poetry the beloved's mouth is so small that it almost does not exist; this mouth, of which one cannot tell whether it is there or not, is an insoluble puzzle. The last couplet closes with a paradox: "esrâr-ı celî", a manifest secret. The beloved is "şems-i hüveydâ", the manifest sun, yet she has never touched the poet's eye. That what is plain as day cannot be seen recalls the tension in Sufism between God's manifestness and his invisibility. "Hüveydâ", the word of the manifest secret, also closes the run of long "â" rhymes (bî-câ, zîbâ, şeydâ, bî-pâ, peydâ, deryâ, ber-pâ, heyhâ, mu‘ammâ, hüveydâ); the metre is "mef‘ûlü mefâ‘îlü mefâ‘îlü fe‘ûlün".

Bibliography

Online sources