Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mef'ûlü fâilâtü mefâîlü fâilün (not stated in the source; derived from the scansion of the lines)

Zülf ü ruhı hayâlde leyl ü nehârda
Seyrüm hemîşe sünbül ü güldür bâhârda
Dil fülki nice olmıya ‘ummân-ı gamda kim
Agyâr o sevr-kaddi dem-â-dem kenârda
Kaddüm ham oldı hicr ile tâk oldı tâkatüm
Sabr u karâr kalmadı ben bî-karârda
Yil gibi yilden ol sanman vaslına velî
Bir bûsesin de alımaduk rûzgârda
Lâyık mı ey gül açılasın gayre sen müdâm
Bülbül gibi Niyâzî kala âh u zârda

In English

1. Night and day I dream of the beloved's hair and cheek; so my outing in spring is always to look at hyacinth and rose. (The hair answers to night and to the hyacinth, the cheek to day and to the rose.)

2. How should the ship of the heart not be left on the ocean of grief, when that cypress-tall beloved is every moment beside strangers, in their arms? ("Kenâr" means both shore and embrace: the ship cannot reach the shore, the beloved is in another's embrace.)

3. Separation has bent my stature, my strength is spent; in me, this restless man, neither patience nor rest remains.

4. Do not think that by running like the wind I have attained union with the beloved; in all my life, in the wind of time, we could not get even a single kiss. (The couplet can be read in two ways: if "ol" is "that one", pointing to the beloved, it means "do not think we reached her by running like the wind"; if it is read as "so", it says "do not think so just because we ran like the wind".)

5. O rose, is it fitting that you should forever open to others while Niyâzî is left, like the nightingale, in sighs and laments?

Literary and Historical Commentary

A Spring Ghazal

Every word of this five-couplet ghazal (gazel) comes from the garden, the sea or the wind. The opening couplet sets up one of the best-loved pairings of divan poetry: the beloved's hair and cheek answer in turn to night and day, then to hyacinth and rose. First two things are named, then two corresponding things are listed in the same order; this arrangement is called leff ü neşr. Because the poet thinks of the beloved's face night and day, every hyacinth he sees on his spring outing reminds him of her hair, every rose of her cheek. The last couplet returns to the same garden: the rose opens to others, Niyâzî laments like the nightingale. The ghazal thus opens in a spring garden and closes there again.

Sea and Wind

The second couplet builds a congruence of images (tenasüp) from ship, ocean and shore. Grief is an ocean, the heart a ship. The reason the ship cannot reach the shore is that "kenâr", the shore, is in the hands of others. The word's other meaning is embrace: the cypress-tall beloved is every moment in the arms of strangers. With a single word the poet speaks both of seafaring and of jealousy. In the second line the edition prints "sevr-kaddi"; the sense and the familiar formula of divan poetry require "serv-kaddi", cypress-tall. It is very probably a printing error caused by transposed letters; the original text keeps the edition's spelling.

In the fourth couplet the wind appears in three separate words. "Yil gibi yilden" describes running like the wind, while "rûzgâr" means both time, a lifetime, and the blowing wind. The lover has gone back and forth to the beloved's door like the wind, but at the end of all that running his hands are empty: he has not received even a kiss. The wind's hand holds nothing; the bitter joke of the couplet lies here. In the third couplet "tâk" and "tâkat" stand side by side. Tâk means an arch and calls up the bent stature; "tâk oldı tâkatüm" is also an idiom meaning "my strength is spent". The sound likeness of the two words forms a pun (cinas).

Text and Source

The ghazal appears only in Kınalızâde Hasan Çelebi's tezkire, under the heading "Şi'r" (poem), as the first example in the entry on Niyâzî. The entry was written in 995-997 (1587-1589), when the poet's father Abdülkâdir Şeyhî Efendi was şeyhülislam; the ghazal therefore belongs to Niyâzî's twenties. Beyânî, who completed his tezkire a few years later, took from Niyâzî only the three couplets that look like opening couplets and did not take this ghazal. One may also ask whether it is a complete ghazal: five couplets is the lower limit for a ghazal and the pen-name couplet is present, so the text is very probably complete. To whom and on what occasion it was written is not known. The poet's short life is told in Niyâzî Abdürrahîm Efendi, and his father's in Abdülkâdir Şeyhî Efendi.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Online sources