Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Hâk-i pâyındır dem-â-dem secdegâh-ı gönlümüz
Tâ ki ol serdâr-ı zülfün bende-i fermânıdır

In English

1. The dust of your feet is at every moment the place of prostration of our heart; for (our heart) is the bondsman at the command of that captain of your tresses.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

It is quoted as a single couplet; the sound "-ıdır" at the end of the second line suggests that it comes from a ghazal rhyming in "-ânıdır". Hüsameddin does not state the metre.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The couplet expresses devotion to the beloved through the relation of a ruler and his bondsman. The heart prostrates itself on the dust of the beloved's feet; the reason is that the heart is bound to the tresses, a bondsman obeying their "command". The naming of the tresses as "serdâr", a commander, is striking: in divan poetry the tresses are thought of as a snare, a chain, sometimes an army that takes hearts captive. There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) around sovereignty and command among the words "serdâr" (commander), "bende" (bondsman) and "fermân" (decree).

"Secdegâh" (place of prostration) and "hâk-i pâ" (dust of the feet) carry a familiar likening of worship and love: the lover rubbing his face on the beloved's threshold. In the poetry of a Sufi sheikh such as Nigârî this utterance may be read as addressed to a human beloved and also to the spiritual guide or the divine beloved; this interpretation is ours.

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