Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilün

Tâ ki dil virdim sana ey nûş-hand
Ney tek alışdım tutuşdum bend bend
Âteş-i hasret dükenmez mi ‘aceb
Tâ yanar cânım nigârâ çend çend
Âh-ı cân-sûzumdan ikrâh itmedin
Dimedin bir dem yeter ey derd-mend
Benden el çekmiş gönül kim dem-be-dem
Eylemiş gîsûların zencîr-bend
Mâh-tâb-âsâ dil-i ser-geştemi
Hâle-i mihrindedir oldur kemend
Eyle bed hâlem ki bed hâlim gören
Terk-i sevdâ eyleyüp almaz bülend
Tutmayan dâmân-ı zülf-i zer nigâr
Mekteb-i sevdâda olmaz Nakşibend
El-meded üftâde[y]em yâ dest-gîr
Yâ Muhammed Yâ ‘Alî yâ Nakşibend
Nî-‘aceb salmış cihâna velvele
Ey Nigârî nâle-i nâyem bend
Şehd-i sevdâdan meger almış mezâk
Tab‘ tâ efşâr ider şehdâb kand
Âferîn söyler hadîs-i tab‘ıma
Hâfız-ı hoş-lehce Hâcû-yı Hocend
İrmez el rütbe-i tab‘ım ‘âlîdir
Çekmegil bî-câ emek ey hod-pesend

In English

1. O honey-laughing one, ever since I gave you my heart I have caught fire like the reed flute and burned node by node.

2. Will the fire of longing never be spent? O beloved (nigâr), how long, how long will my soul burn?

3. You were not repelled by my soul-burning sigh, but not once did you say, "Enough, O sufferer."

4. My heart has let go of me, for every moment it has made your locks its chain.

5. My dizzy heart, like moonlight, lies within the halo of the sun of your love; that is the lasso.

6. Make my state so wretched that whoever sees my wretched state gives up passion and does not raise it high. (The sense of the couplet is uncertain.)

7. He who does not hold the skirt of the gold-patterned tress cannot become a Naqshband (binder of designs) in the school of passion.

8. Help, I am fallen, O you who take the hand; O Muhammad, O Ali, O Naqshband.

9. No wonder it has cast a tumult over the world; O Nigârî, (this) is the moan of my reed, jointed node by node. (This rendering of the couplet is tentative.)

10. The nature must have tasted the honey of passion, for it presses out honeyed draught and sugar.

11. Sweet-spoken Hafez and Hâcû of Khujand say bravo to the speech of my nature. (On the names in the couplet, see the commentary.)

12. No hand can reach it, the rank of my nature is high; O self-admirer, do not toil in vain.

Literary and Historical Commentary

The eighth couplet is a supplication and names three in a row: "Yâ Muhammed, yâ ‘Alî, yâ Nakşibend." The Prophet, Ali and Baha al-Din Naqshband, after whom the Naqshbandi order is named, are called on for help in a single line. The order is like a short map of Nigârî's loyalties: love for the Prophet, love for his household, and the Naqshbandi path of which he himself was a sheikh. In the couplet before, the same name was used in its literal sense: whoever does not hold the skirt of the gold-patterned tress cannot be a "nakşbend", a binder of designs, in the school of passion.

The ghazal shares its metre and its "-end" rhyme with "Dâd kılam ey sanem tâ çend çend", a few pages earlier in the divan; in its first two couplets that ghazal's "bend bend" and "çend çend" return to the rhyme, and the image of the reed flute recurs. The lover is a ney burning node by node. That ghazal ended by saying Shah Naqshband would untie the bond; this one turns the same name into a call for help.

The last three couplets are a boast. The poet's nature has tasted the honey of passion and presses out honeyed draught and sugar; Hafez says bravo to his words; his rank is so high that the self-admirer's hand cannot reach it. In the eleventh couplet the name "Hâcû-yı Hocend" appears beside Hafez of Shiraz. Hâcû is the name of Khwaju of Kerman, a poet contemporary with Hafez; Khujand is the city of Kamal Khujandi, a ghazal poet of the same century. How the line joins the two names is not clear, and the edition offers no explanation. Since the rhyme word is "Hocend", the poet may have used a name and a city together. In either case Nigârî counts himself worthy of the praise of the great masters of the fourteenth-century Persian ghazal.

Bibliography

Online sources