Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Müfte‘ilün Müfte‘ilün Fâ‘ilün

Olmadı hicrân bize maslahat
Gelmedi cânân idin meşveret
Def‘-i gam-ı hicre n’olur bâdeyi
Sâkî-i meyhâne ide merhamet
Müfti-i meyhâneye kılgil suâl
İçkiye fetvâ yaza yüz mes’elet
‘Aşk-durur sürmesi çeşm-i dilin
Şevk mili hüsn-durur mükhulet
‘Aşk ile pâ-tahtı Nigârî kurup
‘Abd-i hüsündür sever ol saltanat

In English

1. Separation did us no good; the beloved did not come so that we might take counsel.

2. What if the cupbearer of the tavern showed mercy with wine (gave wine) to drive away the grief of separation?

3. Ask the mufti of the tavern, so that he may write a fatwa of a hundred questions in favour of drink.

4. The kohl of the heart's eye is love; the kohl stick is longing, the kohl pot is beauty.

5. Nigârî has set up his capital through love; he is the slave of beauty, he loves that sovereignty.

Literary and Historical Commentary

The third couplet plays with the form of a legal document. "Müfti-i meyhâne", the mufti of the tavern, is to write a fatwa for drink, and a fatwa of "yüz mes’elet", a hundred questions at that. Ottoman fatwas were usually built on a question: "If Zeyd does such and such, what follows?" was asked, and the mufti gave a short answer. Nigârî carries this official language into the tavern; the tavern too has its mufti, and his fatwa is in favour of drink. Much as in the play with the legal concept of "illet" a few pages earlier in the divan, here too the language of law is drawn into the lover's defence.

The fourth couplet describes a kohl set. Kohl is a black powder applied to the eye and believed to strengthen it; the "mil" is the thin stick used to apply it to the eye; the "mükhule" is the pot in which kohl is kept. The poet ties these three parts to three concepts: the kohl of the heart's eye is love, its stick longing, its pot beauty. Love increases the heart's power of sight; longing carries it to the eye, and beauty is its source.

The last couplet of the five-couplet ghazal closes with a scene of sovereignty. Nigârî has set up a "pâ-taht", a capital, through love; yet he is not the master of this kingdom but the slave of beauty, and he loves his servitude as a sovereignty. In one of the divan's ghazals of the letter te it was said that servanthood is higher than kingship; the same idea appears here once more. The rhyme opens with maslahat and closes with saltanat, with meşveret, merhamet, mes’elet and mükhulet in between. The short ghazal's pattern is "müfte‘ilün müfte‘ilün fâ‘ilün".

Bibliography

Online sources