Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Derd-i sevdâdır âzârım çekme zahmet ey tabîb
Sabr kılgil kim gelür dermân-ı mevtim ‘an karîb
Hûblar bezmine bahş eyler sürûr âh eylerem
Gülşene revnak virür zîrâ ki zâr-ı ‘andelîb
Ey kemân-ebrû diler gönlüm yine bir tâze cân
Ya‘ni gamzenden bir ok eyler temennâ yâ nasîb
İl yanar ağlar benim-çün kim görüp hicrânını
Bağrı pür-hûn eşk-i gül-gûn pâre pâre çâk-ı ceyb
Gelmedi hîç bir belâ kim sormadı ahvâlimi
Âşinâlar hâlin elbette suâl eyler habîb
Sende ol ben tek giriftâr-ı mahabbet çek elem
Bundan artuk söylemem hakkında bir söz ey rakîb
Şaşdım ey Mîr Nigârî neyleyem tedbîr ne
Çerh kec-reftâr nâ-fercâm u zâlim seg-rakîb

In English

1. O physician, my ailment is the pain of passion, do not trouble yourself; be patient, for the cure of my death will come soon.

2. As I sigh I bestow joy on the gathering of beauties; for the nightingale's lament gives lustre to the rose garden.

3. O you of bow-shaped brows, my heart desires a fresh soul again; that is, it asks an arrow from your glance, what fortune!

4. Seeing your absence, people burn and weep for me; their breasts full of blood, their tears rose-red, their collars torn to pieces.

5. No calamity came that did not ask after me; a beloved, surely, ought to ask how her acquaintances are.

6. O rival, may you too fall in love as I have and suffer grief; I will say no more than this about you.

7. O Mîr Nigârî, I am at a loss, what shall I do, what is the remedy; the sphere is crooked in its course and its end unknown, and the rival a cruel dog.

Literary and Historical Commentary

The fifth couplet is a bitter joke. Every calamity that befell the lover came and asked after him; even the calamities behaved like acquaintances. The beloved, by the implication of the second line, does not ask, although one ought to ask after those one knows. That calamity proves more faithful than the beloved is a reversal frequent in the divan tradition of reproaching the beloved; here the reproach is not spoken outright but hidden inside the word "elbette", surely.

The ghazal opens by addressing a physician. The illness is the pain of passion, and the physician's medicine does it no good; the poet tells him not to trouble himself and to be patient, for the cure of this illness is death and that cure will come "‘an karîb", soon. In divan poetry lovesickness is described as an ailment beyond the physicians' reach; in Nigârî's divan this conversation will continue over a whole ghazal a page later. In couplet two the lover's sigh is like the nightingale's lament: as the nightingale weeps the rose garden shines, and as the lover sighs the gathering of beauties rejoices.

The sixth couplet utters a wish to the rival that looks like a curse: may you too fall in love as I have and suffer grief. The poet adds that he will say nothing more about the rival; yet in the last couplet he does not refrain from calling him "seg", a dog. The sphere is "kec-reftâr", crooked in its course, and "nâ-fercâm", of uncertain end; the lover is caught between the sphere and the rival. How much room the rival takes up shows in the rhyme as well: "rakîb" rhymes twice. The other "-îb" words are tabîb, karîb, ‘andelîb, nasîb, ceyb and habîb.

Bibliography

Online sources