Zehr-e-Ishq (The Poison of Love)

Nawab Mirza Shauq Lakhnavi's Zehr-e-Ishq, the celebrated nineteenth-century Lucknow masnavi: a young man tells in some 560 couplets of his love for a merchant's daughter seen from a rooftop, their letters and secret meetings, her last night and last wishes, her poisoning, her bier and her mother's lament, and his own despair. Complete Urdu text (Wikisource, with the closing couplets from a printed edition on archive.org) and a facing English translation that keeps every couplet as two lines, with introduction and glossary. Cite as: Mirza Shauq Lakhnavi, Zehr-e-Ishq, tr. urduintranslation.com (2026), https://www.urduintranslation.com/works/zehr-e-ishq. The first two chapters are free to read.

نواب مرزا شوق لکھنوی کی مشہور مثنوی زہر عشق: ایک نوجوان کا ایک سوداگر زادی سے عشق، خط و کتابت، چھپی ملاقاتیں، آخری رات کی وصیتیں، اس کا زہر کھانا، جنازہ اور ماں کے بین۔ مکمل اردو متن، ساتھ انگریزی ترجمہ، تعارف اور فرہنگ۔