Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mef‘ûlü Mefâ‘îlü Mefâ‘îlü Fe‘ûlün

el-Minnetü li'llâh ki ‘aşk-ı ezelim var
Dildâr-ı dil-ârâm tek ey dil güzelim var
Ey dil ne elem varmadım ol kûy-ı nigâra
Zîrâ ki revânım gibi ni‘me'l-bedelim var
‘Âşkında seher ü şâm geh ol turfe gazâlın
Turre-i semen-sâ gibi çîn çîn gazelim var
Vâ‘iz degülem bâde-keşem gûşe-nişînem
Ne kimse ile güft ü şenîd ü cedelim var
el-Minnetü li'llâh ki tâ rûz-ı ezelden
Sen tek sanemâ la‘l-i şirînim müzilim var
Bir görmek ile ‘ârız-ı gülgûnunı handân
Cân virmege ey yâr-ı ‘azîzim emelim var
Ey Mîr Nigârî benem ol baht-ı hümâyûn
Kim yâr huzûrunda güzel bir mahalim var
Dâreynde bir lutf-ı İlâhiydi penâhım
Cürmîdir işim yohsa ne sâlih ‘amelim var

In English

1. Thanks be to God, I have a love that comes from pre-eternity; O heart, I have a beauty like the heart-soothing beloved.

2. O heart, what grief if I did not go to that beloved's street; for I have a most excellent recompense, like my own soul. (The sense of the couplet is not clear.)

3. In love of that rare gazelle, morning and evening, I have ghazals curl upon curl like her jasmine-scented forelock.

4. I am no preacher, I am a wine-drinker who sits in his corner; I have no talk, no gossip, no quarrel with anyone.

5. Thanks be to God, since the day of pre-eternity, O idol, I have a sweet ruby lip like yours, one that takes (my grief) away. (The meaning given for "müzil" is a guess.)

6. O my dear beloved, my wish is to see your rosy cheek laughing once and give up my life.

7. O Mîr Nigârî, I am that auspicious fortune who has a fine place in the beloved's presence.

8. In both worlds my refuge was a divine grace; my work is sin, otherwise what righteous deed have I?

Literary and Historical Commentary

A couplet placed after the signature changes the whole mood of what went before. In the seventh Mîr Nigârî calls himself "baht-ı hümâyûn", auspicious fortune, and says he has a fine place in the beloved's presence. That is the highest happiness a lover can reach. But the eighth, coming straight after, says that his only refuge in both worlds was a divine grace, that his own work is nothing but sin and that he has no good deed to show. The place in the beloved's presence is not a right but a gift. A familiar thought of religious tradition, that the servant should trust not his own deeds but God's mercy, is added to the end of the ghazal like a prayer.

"Hümâyûn" means auspicious, blessed, and at its root lies the name of the Huma, the bird believed to make a king of anyone on whose head its shadow fell. For the poet to call himself auspicious fortune is like saying that the shadow of this bird has fallen upon him.

The fourth couplet makes a comparison common in the divan in plain words: the poet is no preacher, he drinks wine, has withdrawn to a corner and argues with no one. The preacher's trade is speech and dispute; the poet's is silence and drink. In the third couplet "gazâl" and "gazel" stand side by side once more: the ghazals sung in love of that rare gazelle curl like her forelock. "Çîn" means a curl or fold, and the same word calls to mind the land of China, held to be the home of the musk deer.

Bibliography

Online sources