Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Şehd-i la‘lindir şifâ-ender-şifâ kim ey habîb
Derd-i sevdâya hemîn sensin tabîb sensin tabîb
Eylesün mevlâ seni fi'l-cümle ‘aşka mübtelâ
Kurtaram tâ kim elinden yandı cânım ey rakîb
Hansı bir gül kaydına salmış seni kılmış esîr
Mübtelâsın ey dil-i sevdâ-zede v’ey çâk-i ceyb
Çâre ne pervâne-i dil-sûzı al gel yanıma
Derd-i ‘aşkı dem-be-dem yanup dimek ey ‘andelîb
Bâde-i sevdâ-yı cânım öz ayağıylan gelür
Hamdü li’llâh böyledir kısmet beni arar nasîb
Kılmagil bu bende-i bî-tâ‘atın senden cüdâ
İltifâtın kesme benden ey bana benden karîb
Bulmak istersen eger mecnûniyetden bir nişân
Söylegil dil-teşne ey Seyyid Nigârî yâ habîb

In English

1. O beloved, the honey of your lips is healing upon healing; you alone are the physician of passion's pain, you are the physician.

2. O rival, may the Lord make you too utterly smitten with love, so that I may be rid of you; my soul has burned.

3. O passion-struck heart with a torn collar, which rose has caught you in its snare and made you captive, that you are so smitten?

4. O nightingale, what remedy; take the heart-burning moth and come to me; the pain of love must be told burning at every moment.

5. The wine of the soul's passion comes on its own feet; praise be to God, such is my lot, fortune comes looking for me.

6. O you who are nearer to me than myself, do not part this disobedient servant from you, do not cut off your favour from me.

7. O Seyyid Nigârî, if you wish to find some sign of madness, say "yâ habîb", O beloved, with a thirsting tongue.

Literary and Historical Commentary

The address in the sixth couplet is the ghazal's centre of gravity: "ey bana benden karîb", O you who are nearer to me than myself. The Quranic sura Qâf says that God is nearer to man than his jugular vein; Sufi poetry uses this nearness as the furthest point of address to the beloved. Here Nigârî speaks to the beloved with an address plainly directed towards God and sets himself before him as a "bende-i bî-tâ‘at", a disobedient servant. The world of rival, nightingale and rose in the ghazal's earlier couplets turns with this couplet into a prayer.

In couplet five the divan word "ayak" plays on both its senses. The wine comes "öz ayağıylan", on its own feet; ayak means both a walking foot and a cup. The wine walking to the lover in its own cup describes fortune found without seeking: fortune seeks the lover, not the lover fortune. Forms such as "öz" (own), "hansı" (which) and "-ylan" (with) belong to Azerbaijani Turkish and tie the language of the ghazal to the poet's native region.

In the next couplet the rival is again cursed with love: may the Lord make him fall in love too, so that the lover may be free of him. The same wish occurs in the ghazal "Derd-i sevdâdır âzârım" a few pages earlier, and the two poems share almost the same rhyme words. In the fourth couplet the nightingale and the moth, the two great lovers of divan poetry, are called together: one loves through voice, the other through fire, and the pain of love can only be told burning. The last couplet gives a password to whoever seeks a sign of madness: to say "yâ habîb", O beloved, with a thirsting tongue. "Habîb" rhymes twice, once in the opening couplet and once in the closing password; tabîb, rakîb, ceyb, ‘andelîb, nasîb and karîb are the other "-îb" words.

Bibliography

Online sources