Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Şâm-ı kevkeb şerer-i nâle-i ger-i çâtımdır
Subh-ı hûrşîd eser-i şu‘le-i heyhâtımdır
Felek-i mihride bir şems-i mudıyyâyam kim
Zümre-i meh-perestân kevkeb-i zerrâtımdır
Ne kadar yelse bana bâd irişmez neşe kim
Ser-i mi‘râc-ı hevâ pây-ı makãmâtımdır
Eylemez kimse heves mesned-i mevrûsuma kim
‘Aşk serverligi mülk-i neseb-i zâtımdır
Himmet-i pîr-i mugãn‘aşk-ı Hudâ-dâdım ile
Sinn-i çihl sâlde hoş tab‘ kerâmâtımdır
N'ola Eflâtun Aristoya diyem şâkirdim
Fikr-i cümle hukemâ hâl-i hayâlâtımdır
Ne kadar var letâfet ne kadar var nükât
Dâhil-i gûşe-i ber-nokta-i ebyâtımdır
Câmi‘u'l-kelim lebin sâyesidir kim ey cân
Cem‘-i dîvân-ı eser feyz-i makãlâtımdır
Var gayr-ı hünerim ehl-i makãmât bilür
Feyz-i eş‘âr-i şirîn ba‘z-ı kemâlâtımdır
Câzib ey Mîr Nigârî dil-i mahbûbları
Reviş-i âhû-yı hüsn-i gazaliyyâtımdır

In English

1. The starry evening is the spark of my lament; the sunlit morning is the trace of the flame of my "alas". (How the first line is built is unclear.)

2. I am a radiant sun in the sky of love; the company of moon-worshippers are the stars among my motes.

3. However the wind may race, it cannot reach me; for the summit of the ascension of the air is the foot of my stations.

4. No one covets the seat I inherited; for the sovereignty of love is the realm of my own lineage.

5. Through the favour of the elder of the Magians and my God-given love, at forty years of age my fine nature is my miracle.

6. What if I call Plato and Aristotle my pupils? The thought of all the sages is a state of my fancies.

7. All the subtlety, all the wit there is, lies within the corner of a dot in my couplets.

8. O soul, (this gift of speech) is the shade of the lip of the one "comprehensive in speech"; the gathering of a divan is the grace of my words.

9. The people of the stations know that I have other skills; the grace of sweet poems is only part of my accomplishments.

10. O Mîr Nigârî, what draws the hearts of the fair is the gazelle-like gait of the beauty of my ghazals.

Literary and Historical Commentary

This ghazal is a boast, a display of the kind divan poetry calls "fahriye". The poet likens himself to a sun shining in the sky of love; the moon-worshippers become his motes, his stars. He might well call Plato and Aristotle his pupils, since the thought of all the sages is but a state of his fancies. All subtlety and wit lie hidden in a single dot of his couplets. Divan poets voiced their boasts at the very edge of exaggeration, and their listeners heard them as a display of skill; Nigârî's couplets should be read within that tradition.

Yet the boast has a footing, and the poet names it openly. In the fourth couplet the sovereignty of love is "mülk-i neseb-i zât", the realm of his lineage, an inheritance no one can covet. In the eighth the source of his gift of speech is tied to the Prophet's title "Câmi‘u'l-kelim", the one comprehensive in speech. The title means having been granted the power to say much in few words, and a hadith counts it among the gifts given to the Prophet. The poet says he owes his ability to gather a divan to the shade of that lip. For a sayyid poet the boast is a boast of lineage, and it turns less towards himself than towards his ancestor.

The fifth couplet gives an age: the poet is forty, and the beauty of his nature is a miracle of the elder's favour and the love God gave him. Since the sources give Nigârî's year of birth variously, anywhere between 1795 and 1815, which years this couplet falls in cannot be said for certain. "Gazaliyyât" in the closing line means ghazals, but the "gazâl", gazelle, within it gives their beauty a gait: what draws the hearts of the fair is the gazelle-like step of the poems.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Academic studies

  • Aytekin Şenzeybek, "Hamza Nigârî'nin Farklı İslam Yorumlarına Yaklaşımı", Necmettin Erbakan Üniversitesi İlahiyat Fakültesi Dergisi, 47, 2019, pp. 429-444.
  • Fatih Çınar, "Nakşî-Hâlidî Şeyhi Hamza Nigarî'nin İsteğiyle Yazılan Bir Ehl-i Beyti Müdafaa Risalesi: Risâle fî Ta'n li-men Hâlefe Ali Radıyallahu Teâlâ Anh", Tokat Gaziosmanpaşa Üniversitesi İlahiyat Fakültesi Dergisi, VII/1, 2019, pp. 125-150. https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/article-file/803338

Online sources