Original Ottoman Turkish Text

‘Aşk sahrâsını her lahza hümây-ı gönlüm
Tek ü tenhâ dolanur sanma gezer ‘Ankâ tek

In English

1. The huma bird of my heart roams the desert of love every moment all alone; do not think it a bird wandering about (aimlessly) like the Anka.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

It is quoted as a single couplet. The word "tek" at the end of the second line means "like" in Azerbaijani Turkish; in the phrase "tek ü tenhâ" at the beginning of the same line it means "alone". In Hüsameddin's text the lengthening mark on "‘Ankâ" appears as a different letter in the text layer of the e-book; it has been taken here as "â". Hüsameddin does not state the metre.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The couplet is built on two legendary birds. The huma is the bird that always flies high and is believed to raise to fortune whomever its shadow falls upon; the Anka is the bird that has a name but no existence, said to live on Mount Kaf and seen by no one. The poet likens his heart to the huma and asks that its loneliness in the desert of love not be confused with the never-seen existence of the Anka. Depending on where "sanma" ("do not think") is attached, the couplet can also be read slightly differently: "it roams all alone; do not think it wanders like the Anka". Both readings point in the same direction.

The most striking feature of the couplet is the use of the word "tek" in two different senses: "tek ü tenhâ" (all alone) and "‘Ankâ tek" (like the Anka). The repetition of the same word with different meanings is called cinas (paronomasia). The wordplay arises from using Azerbaijani and Anatolian Turkish together; Hüsameddin may have had such usages in mind when he spoke of "literary oddities that do not conform to the rules of our language", but he does not say so explicitly. There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) of desert and birds among the words "sahrâ" (desert), "hümâ" and "‘Ankâ".

Historical Context

Hüsameddin writes that Nigârî's divan contains fine naats (poems in praise of the Prophet), lofty ghazals and kıt‘as voicing burning, inward griefs, but that among them there are also poetic flaws and literary oddities that do not conform to the rules of the language, which should be counted as expressions peculiar to the poet; he then lists nine pieces in a row, introducing them with "for example". He does not distinguish which couplet is given as an example of beauty and which of a flaw. For the poet's literary personality see Nigârî: Poet and Works.

Bibliography

Online sources