Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilün

Yandım Allâhı sever kanı şarâb
Meded ey merd-i Hudâ ehl-i sevâb
Bahş ider bezm şarâb-hârlara
Oda yanmış cigerim bûy-ı kebâb
Gül-heves bâde-perestdir gönlüm
Ki virür neş’e-i mey ‘ıtr-ı gülâb
Şîr-i âhû iledir perverişim
Nefesimden saçılur nâfe-i nâb
Ni ‘aceb söylerem eş‘âr ile kim
Açılur perde-i dil bâb-ı hicâb
İçübem bâde-i sahbâ-yı cünûn
Kılubam mey-kede-i ‘aklı harâb
Ey Nigârî ne ‘aceb bülbül-i dil
Bu gice uymadı ol görmedi hâb

In English

1. I am burning, for God's sake, where is the wine; help, O man of God, O you of merit.

2. The gathering offers the drinkers the scent of kebab from my liver burned in fire.

3. My heart longs for the rose and is devoted to wine; for the joy of wine gives off the fragrance of rose-water.

4. I was raised on gazelle's milk; from my breath pure musk-pods scatter.

5. Is it any wonder if I speak in poems; through them the veil of the heart, the door of modesty, is opened.

6. I have drunk the wine of madness and laid waste the tavern of reason.

7. O Nigârî, what a wonder that the nightingale of the heart did not sleep tonight, saw no sleep.

Literary and Historical Commentary

The fourth couplet turns a piece of natural lore into a boast. Musk, according to old belief, comes from the pod in the navel of the musk deer that lives in the deserts of Khitay and Khotan. The poet says he was raised on gazelle's milk; therefore the scent of musk scatters from his breath as well. Musk here is the scent of poetry: the words of a poet nourished by the gazelle smell of musk too. The fifth couplet tells the work of this fragrant speech: poetry lifts the veil of the heart and opens the door of modesty. Earlier pages traced verse back to love or to the poet's nature; here poetry is given a power that opens veils.

The sixth couplet reverses a familiar image of divan poetry. The tavern is usually "harâbât", a ruined, neglected place; reason belongs with the sober one, the zealot. Nigârî gives reason a tavern of its own and lays it waste by drinking the wine of madness. Reason too has its own intoxication, its own tavern; the madness of love turns it into a ruin.

The second couplet carries the image of the liver as kebab, seen in the divan's earlier ghazals, into scent: the smell of the burning liver spreads through the gathering and becomes a relish for the drinkers. In the third couplet the joy of wine smells of rose-water; scent is the sense that ties all the images of the ghazal together. At the close the heart is a nightingale that has not slept at all tonight; the nightingale sings for the rose until morning. "Hâb", sleep, is the last link in the "-âb" rhyme that has run since şarâb in the opening couplet (şarâb, sevâb, kebâb, gülâb, nâb, hicâb, harâb, hâb), so the sleepless nightingale settles into the rhyme itself. The pattern is "fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilün".

Bibliography

Online sources