Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Ey gönül miftâh-ı mihr ile olur esrâr feth
Bâb-ı muglâkâtı eyler kâse-i ser-şâr feth

In English

1. O heart, secrets are opened with the key of love; and the brimming cup opens the doors of what is locked.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

It is quoted as a single couplet. Both its lines end with the word "feth" (opening); "esrâr" and "ser-şâr" are rhyming words. Accordingly the couplet is the matla of a ghazal with the refrain "feth" and the rhyme "-âr". In Hüsameddin's text the lengthening mark on "muglâkâtı" 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 images of opening. In the first line the key that opens secrets is "mihr"; this word means both love, affection and the sun, and the two meanings may be thought of together in the couplet: secrets are resolved both by love and by a clarity like the sun's light. This double meaning is tevriye (double entendre). In the second line it is the brimming cup that opens locked doors; in divan poetry and Sufism wine is often the symbol of divine love and ecstasy.

There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) among the words "miftâh" (key), "bâb" (door) and "muglâkât" (locked things, things hard to resolve). The repetition of "feth" as the refrain in both lines brings forward a view of knowledge that opens not by way of reason but by way of love and ecstasy. The couplet accords with the place of love as the key to knowledge in Nigârî's Sufi thought; this connection is our interpretation.

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