Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilün

Sanmanuz lâle gülistânlu vü yâ bâğludur
Tanıruz biz bu kızılbaşı Karadağludur
Ağlar ‘âşık sînede gül açılur lâle biter
Ne güzel bahtlıdur bâğlu vü ırmâğludur
Fâriğ itmek dil-i şeydânı belâdan müşkil
Mübtelâdır ki tel-i mihnet ile bağludur
‘Aksdir hâl ü ruhun kim gözüm ablak görünür
Sanma kim ba‘zı karalu ba‘zı ağludur
Kılmış ‘Ankã seferin Hüdhüd-i gönlüm bî-bâk
Ne elem eyler o kim tuğlu vü bayrağludur
‘Arsa-i mihrde bî-bâk ü dilîr-âne gezer
Her kimin zülf-i nigâr ile bili bağludur
Biz bu dîvâne[y]i âvâreyi şeydâ sıfatı
Bilirüz Mîr Nigâriydi Karabağludur

In English

1. Do not suppose the tulip comes from a rose garden or an orchard; we know this red-head, it is from Karadağ.

2. The lover weeps; roses open in his breast and tulips grow. How fortunate is that breast, with its orchard and its river.

3. It is hard to free the mad heart from calamity; it is afflicted, bound with the string of suffering.

4. Your mole and cheek are reflected in my eye, and so it looks piebald; do not think it is of itself part black and part white.

5. The hoopoe of my heart has set out fearlessly on the journey to the Anka (the Simurgh); what fear has one who carries a crest and a banner?

6. Whoever has bound his waist with the beloved's tress wanders fearless and bold in the field of love.

7. We know this madman, this vagrant of crazed appearance; he was Mîr Nigârî, he is from Karabağ.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Nigârî frames this ghazal with two place names. Karadağ in the opening couplet is most likely the mountainous region south of the Aras and north of Tabriz; Karabağ in the signature couplet is the poet's birthplace. According to the sources Mîr Hamza was born in the village of Cicimli in the Zangezur district of Karabağ, was educated there and afterwards emigrated to Amasya, where he spent the rest of his life. The closing couplet has the poet describe himself from outside: "We know this madman; he was Mîr Nigârî, he is from Karabağ." In a divan written in Amasya the sentence can be read as an exile setting his homeland beside his own name.

The word "kızılbaş", red-head, in the opening couplet describes the tulip's red crown. The tulip should not be taken for a flower raised in a garden; this red-head has come from the mountains of Karadağ. The word also recalls the name Kızılbaş, taken from the red caps of the Safavid soldiery, and a poet born in the lands of Azerbaijan can hardly have been unaware of the echo. The couplet, though, makes no open political reference; what the text shows is the mountain tulip set apart from the garden tulip.

The fifth couplet rests on Farid al-Din Attar's Mantiq al-tayr, in which the birds set out in search of their king, the Simurgh, guided by the hoopoe. Nigârî likens his heart to the hoopoe, and the Anka, the Simurgh, is the symbol of God. The crest on the hoopoe's head is called a "tuğ", the horsetail standard of a commander; just as a commander with standard and banner knows no fear, the crested bird does not fear the dangers of the way. Nezaket Memmedli quotes this couplet among the examples of the Simurgh symbol in her study of Attar's influence on Nigârî.

The image of the eye in the fourth couplet is carefully built. An "ablak" eye is a large eye with sharply marked white and black. The poet does not claim this piebald look for himself: the beloved's black mole and white cheek are mirrored in the eye and make it appear black and white. Nor does the sound "bağ" in the rhyme keep to one meaning: the breast with its orchard, the heart bound by the string of suffering, the waist bound with the tress, and at the end the poet from Karabağ.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Academic studies

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