Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Arturur zevkımi bir nâm-ı dilber
Anun-çün dem-be-dem eylerem ezber
Alsalar ne kadar nâr-gâhımdan
Kotarmaz âteşim dükenmez ahker
Ele saldım yine bâde-i nâbı
Aldım engûrden tâze bir duhter
Nâ-fehimdir bilmez bâde-i nâbı
Zâhid-i bed-gevher nühûset-ahter
Pertev-i mihirden feyiz-yâbdır
Kamer şâm u seher şems münevver
Her bir güftârı bin halâvet virür
Tûtî-i tab‘ımın binâsı şekker
Şehd-âbın açılsa nutkı söylese
Söyleyemez yine böyle şîrin-ter
İfrât-ı mahabbet güftâr-ı melîh
Mülk-i mevrûsumdur ez Hayrü'l-beşer
Himmet-i pirdir bahş-ı Hudâdır
Hâsıl-ı ‘aşkdır bu şirîn defter
Ey Seyyid Nigârî görmedim sen tek
Seyr itdim ‘âlemi dîvâne bir er

In English

1. A beloved's name increases my delight; that is why I learn it by heart again every moment.

2. However much they take from my hearth, my fire does not die down and my embers do not run out.

3. Once more I have taken pure wine in hand; I have taken a fresh daughter from the grape (the vine's daughter, wine).

4. The ascetic of evil nature and ill-starred fate is without understanding; he does not know pure wine.

5. The moon draws its grace from the sun's ray; the sun is radiant morning and evening.

6. Every word of his gives a thousand sweetnesses; the parrot of my nature is built of sugar.

7. Even if (the beloved's) honey-syrup lip should open and speak, it could not speak so sweetly. (The sense of this couplet is approximate.)

8. Excess of love and salty, pleasing speech are my inherited realm from the best of mankind.

9. This sweet notebook is the favour of the elder, the gift of God, the harvest of love.

10. O Seyyid Nigârî, I have travelled the world and seen no madman like you.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Of the couplets in which a poet tells where his poetry comes from, the eighth here is among the most personal. Excess of love and "melîh", salty, pleasing speech are the poet's inheritance from "Hayrü'l-beşer", the best of mankind. Nigârî was a sayyid, a descendant of the Prophet, and names himself by that title in many poems. In this couplet the bond of descent becomes a poetic inheritance: both the gift of speech and a love that runs to excess have passed from ancestor to descendant. The ninth couplet completes the account: the notebook of poems is the favour of the elder, the gift of God and the harvest of love. The poet does not look for the source of his words in his own skill.

Wine is named in the third couplet by a familiar figure of divan poetry, "duhter-i rez", the daughter of the vine; the poet says he has taken "a fresh daughter" from the grape. In the fourth the ascetic appears as one who does not know this wine: his nature is base, his star ill-omened, and he cannot grasp what pure wine is. "Mihr" in the fifth couplet means both sun and love. That the moon takes its light from the sun is a familiar observation; read as "pertev-i mihr", the ray of love, it says that a dark heart takes its light from love.

Here too no metre is named. Most of the lines have eleven syllables, and the ghazal seems to belong among the syllabic poems that follow one another in this stretch of the divan. The signature couplet, as happens more than once in Nigârî's verse, describes the poet from outside: someone who has travelled the world says he has seen no madman like Seyyid Nigârî.

Bibliography

Online sources