Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Vâ‘izün kürsîde kîl ü kãli var
Celb-i dünyâ içün bin makãli var
Ceri vü meri yok mı az u mazdan
Ağlıyor mağlıyor bin melâli var
Vâ‘iz ü mâ‘izin akçe makçesi
Fikri ehl-i dilin bir hayâli var
Nâsih u mâsihin kör olsun gözi
Görmesün dilberin rûy-i alı var
Tab‘-ı gazelhânın tûtî-zebânın
Bir şirîn makãli bir gazâli var
Gönül şâm u seher hevâ-dârdır
Bir kuşdur yorulmaz per ü bâli var
Ne gamam himmet-i pîr-i mugãnam
Serimde sâye-i Agabâlı var
İmdi fehm eylemez erbâbü'l-kulûb
Seyyid Nigârînin başka hâli var

In English

1. The preacher in his pulpit has his gossip and chatter; to gather worldly goods he has a thousand kinds of talk.

2. Has he not his alms-collecting and whatnot from here and there? (Still) he weeps and whines and has a thousand griefs. (The sense given for the first line is uncertain.)

3. The preacher and his like have their coins and cash; the thought of the people of the heart has but one vision.

4. May the eyes of the counsellor and his kind go blind; let them not see that the beloved has a rosy cheek.

5. My ghazal-singing, parrot-tongued nature has a sweet word, a gazelle (a ghazal).

6. The heart, morning and evening, loves the air (follows its desire); it is a bird that never tires, it has wings and feathers.

7. What grief have I? The favour of the elder of the Magians is with me; over my head is the shadow of Ağabâlî.

8. Now even the people of the heart cannot grasp it; Seyyid Nigârî is in a state apart.

Literary and Historical Commentary

The language of this ghazal is more everyday, closer to speech, than that of most of the divan. Words are doubled with echoes beginning in "m": "az u maz", "ağlıyor mağlıyor", "akçe makçe", "vâ‘iz ü mâ‘iz", "nâsih u mâsih". In spoken Turkish this pattern, as in "kitap mitap", books and suchlike, carries contempt, and the poet turns it against the preacher, the counsellor and their love of money. "Ceri vü meri" in the second couplet seems to be of the same kind: "cer" is the name for the rounds made by madrasa students and teachers through the villages to collect alms. On this reading the preacher, despite what he gains from his alms rounds and the rest, weeps, whines and complains of his troubles. Because the construction of the line is not entirely clear, this meaning is offered with caution.

The edition gives no metre for this poem. Most of its lines have eleven syllables ("Vâ-‘i-zün-kür-sî-de-kî-lü-kâ-li-var"), though a few, such as "Gönül şâm u seher hevâ-dârdır", fall one syllable short. The divan is known to contain other poems in syllabic metre, and together with the conversational diction this count suggests that the ghazal may be built on syllabic measure.

The name "Agabâlı" in the seventh couplet is the most personal word in the ghazal. According to the family tree, Nigârî's family migrated from Medina and settled in the village of Cicimli in Karabağ in the time of his eighth-generation ancestor, Şemseddin Muhammed Ağa Bâlî. In another ghazal the poet calls himself "Hüseynî Hayderî evlâd-ı seyyid Agabalı", and that line is cited as the place where he declares his descent from Husayn. Here he says that above his head he carries both the favour of the tavern elder and the shadow of his sayyid ancestor; these are the two supports that give him confidence against the gossip of the preachers.

"Gazâl" in the fifth couplet means gazelle, and in saying that his nature has a gazelle the poet also calls the ghazal form to mind. "Hevâ-dâr" in the sixth is two-sided in the same way: "hevâ" means both air and desire. The heart is a bird that loves the air, with tireless wings, and its flight is the pursuit of longing. A state that even the adepts of the heart cannot grasp is the matter of the signature couplet; a ghazal that began in the world of preachers ends in the solitude of a poet called by the title of Seyyid, whom no one understands.

Bibliography

  • Nigârî, Nigârî Dîvânı, ed. A. Azmi Bilgin, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Kütüphaneler ve Yayımlar Genel Müdürlüğü, 2017 (e-book, Kültür Eserleri Dizisi 482), poem 165, p. 105. https://ekitap.ktb.gov.tr/TR-194361/nigari-divani.html
  • Aytekin Şenzeybek, "Hamza Nigârî'nin Farklı İslam Yorumlarına Yaklaşımı", Necmettin Erbakan Üniversitesi İlahiyat Fakültesi Dergisi, 47, 2019, pp. 429-444.

Online sources