Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mefâ‘îlün Mefâ‘îlün Mefâ‘îlün Mefâ‘îlün

Zebânım kand-perdâz it temedduh içre ey Mevlâ
Nebâtistân-ı vasfında dilim kıl tûti-i gûyâ
Kemâlin pertevinden hayret almış akl-ı vâsıflar
Kamaşmış ‘ayn-ı meddâhân ki olmuş vasfdan a‘mâ
Sühan-sâzâne evsâf-ı cemâlin hayret-efzâdır
Garîk-i hayrete müşkil-nümâdır sohbet-i deryâ
Sığışmaz vâsıfın tab‘ına evsâfın ki müşkildir
Dem urma nûr-ender-nûr horden zerre-i ednâ
Hüveydâ ‘akl-ı kül vasfından ‘âcizdir ki mümkin mi
Gubâr-ı reh-güzâra vasf-ı Kãf u sohbet-i ‘Ankã
Dem urma ‘akl-ı noksân-ıla müşkildir mu‘ammâdan
Ki eblehden umulmaz halli aslâ ebcede ma‘nâ
Sana şâyeste senden özge vasf itmez yakînümdür
Ki lâ uhsî senâen söyledikde server-i dânâ
Yeter medhinde ‘acz-i Ahmed-i mu‘ciz-zebân mutlak
Yeter vasfında lâ uhsî senâen vasf-ı bî-hemtâ
Nigârî ‘acz ‘ani'l-evsâfdan gam çekme zîrâ kim
Hakîkat ‘acz ‘ani'l-evsâfdır esnâ-i müstesnâ

In English

1. O Lord, make my tongue scatter sugar in praising you; make my tongue a talking parrot in the sugarcane garden of your attributes.

2. From the light of your perfection the minds of those who describe you are struck with wonder; the eyes of your praisers are dazzled, blinded by describing.

3. To tell the attributes of your beauty with skill in words only increases wonder; for one drowned in the sea of wonder, even talking of the sea is hard.

4. Your attributes do not fit within the nature of the one who describes them, for (the task) is hard; O tiny, lowly mote, do not boast about the light within light. (The reading and meaning of the word "horden" in the line are uncertain; it has been taken as "hurde", small, tiny.)

5. Clearly universal reason is unable to describe him; can the dust of the road describe Mount Qaf or converse with the Anka bird?

6. Do not boast with a deficient mind; this task is harder than a riddle; one can never expect a fool to solve a meaning hidden by the abjad reckoning.

7. What I know for certain is that none but you can give you the description that befits you; so too the learned leader (the Prophet) said "lâ uhsî senâen" (I cannot count Your praise).

8. In your praise the incapacity of Ahmed, whose tongue worked miracles, is enough; in describing you "lâ uhsî senâen", that peerless description, is enough.

9. Nigârî, do not grieve at falling short of describing; for in truth falling short of description is the choicest of praises.

Literary and Historical Commentary

The poet begins by praying that his tongue may be equal to praising God and ends by accepting that praise is impossible. The seven couplets in between go through the various faces of this impossibility. The prayer of the first couplet rests on a bird the divan poets loved: the parrot (tûtî) speaks by eating sugar, and the sugarcane garden is its home. The poet asks for his tongue to become such a parrot. But by the next couplet the minds of those who describe freeze in wonder, and their eyes are dazzled and blinded.

At the centre of the ghazal stands a hadith. The words "Lâ uhsî senâen aleyke, ente kemâ esneyte alâ nefsik" (I cannot count the praise due to You; You are as You have praised Yourself), from a prayer of the Prophet, are cited twice, in the seventh and eighth couplets. Nigârî's reasoning is clear: if even the Prophet, whose tongue worked miracles, confessed his inability to praise God, the incapacity of another poet is nothing to be ashamed of. The last couplet turns this thought into consolation: falling short of description is in fact the highest form of praise. The idea that knowing one's incapacity is itself a kind of knowledge recurs often in Sufi writings.

The intervening couplets draw the limit of reason with concrete images. The dust of the road cannot describe Mount Qaf, believed to encircle the world, nor converse with the legendary Anka bird that lives on it. The sixth couplet brings in the riddle (muamma) and the abjad reckoning: the muamma is a kind of puzzle that hides the letters of a name inside a poem, and abjad is a way of concealing meaning by giving letters numerical values. Just as an ignorant person cannot break such a code, a deficient mind cannot grasp the divine attributes. The comparison is taken from the everyday literary culture of the Ottoman reader.

The final rhyme word, "müstesnâ", shares its root with "istisnâ" in the third couplet of the previous ghazal, so that the two poems seem pinned together by a single word. As in the other elif ghazals, the rhyme turns on a long "â": Mevlâ, gûyâ, a‘mâ, deryâ, ednâ, ‘Ankã, ma‘nâ, dânâ, bî-hemtâ, müstesnâ.

Bibliography

Online sources