Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Cânıma çekmiş felek Bergüşad’ın dâgını
Sönmez âteşi ursan Hekeri ırmağını
Odlara yandım aman hasretim pîr-i mugân
Dâda yitmez piyâle sun meyin ırmağını
Cem‘ olup endûh-ı gam hâlime ağlar ‘âlem
Ya‘kûb-ı sânî benem gör gözümün ağını
Tâc-ı serim degse ger şemse n’ola ol mehin
Râhına yüzler sürüp öpmüşem ayağını
Tanrı bilür virmeyiz mülk-i Süleymâna biz
Dilber-i zîbâmızın zerre-i dırnağını
Ey zerger puhte hâm eyleme sâf it tamâm
Olmaya ki incide hâtemi barmağını
Şems nedir bilmezem çeşm-i nazar-bâzıma
Tâ idem âf-tâb dergehi toprağını
Gör ne düşüp hâşına yine bülbül başına
Ağlar saçar savurur gülşenin toprağını
Kan eker odlar döker Mîr Nigârî meger
Yâd kılupdur yine yâr-ı Karabağını
In English
1. Fate has laid upon my soul the mountain of Bergüşad (and the scar of branding); though you pour the Hekeri river over it, this fire will not be quenched.
2. I have burned in flames, mercy, O master of the tavern whom I long for; the cup cannot answer my cry, offer me a river of wine.
3. The sorrow of grief has gathered, and the world weeps over my state; I am a second Jacob, see the whiteness of my eyes.
4. I have rubbed my face on the path of that moon-faced one and kissed his feet; is it any wonder if the crown of my head touches the sun?
5. God knows, we would not give a speck of the fingernail of our adorned beloved even for the kingdom of Solomon.
6. O goldsmith, do not make raw what is well wrought, refine it fully; lest the ring should hurt his finger.
7. What the sun is I do not know, for my gazing eye; until I make the dust of his threshold my sun. (The line yields no certain meaning; the reading is conjectural.)
8. See what has befallen the nightingale again; it weeps, scattering and strewing the soil of the rose garden. (The reading of the word "hâşına" is uncertain.)
9. Mîr Nigârî sows blood and pours out fire; it seems he has once again remembered his beloved in Karabağ.
Literary and Historical Commentary
Structure of the Poem
It is a ghazal of nine couplets. The redif (refrain) is the suffix "-ını"; the rhyme rests on the sound "-ağ" in "dâgını, ırmağını, ağını, ayağını, dırnağını, barmağını, toprağını, Karabağını". In the seventh and eighth couplets the word "toprağını" is used twice as a rhyme. Both lines of the opening couplet end with the same rhyme; the pen name appears in the last couplet as "Mîr Nigârî". The source does not state the metre.
The text is taken from the "Eserlerinden Örnekler" (samples of his works) section of the Nigârî entry in the Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü (Dictionary of Names in Turkish Literature); the entry quotes the samples from A. Azmi Bilgin's 2003 edition of the divan. In Bilgin's edition the ghazal is on page 209. Words such as "odlar" (fires), "barmak" (finger), "dırnak" (fingernail), "ağ" (white) and "benem" (I am) are forms peculiar to Azerbaijani Turkish.
Meaning and Figures of Speech
The ghazal is a known example of Nigârî's poems recalling his native land. Bergüşad is the Karabağ town to which Cicimli, the village where the poet was born, belonged; Hekeri is a river flowing in Karabağ. In the first couplet the word "dâg" has two meanings: both mountain and the scar of branding. Fate has laid the mountain of Bergüşad on the poet's soul, that is, has pressed longing for his homeland into him like a brand; this fire will not go out even if the homeland's river is poured over it. The first couplet thus expresses the pain of exile through the very geography of the homeland. The last couplet returns to the same place: if the poet weeps blood and scatters fire, the reason is that he has once again remembered his beloved in Karabağ.
The couplets in between combine familiar allusions and conceits of divan poetry with the warm diction of Azerbaijani Turkish. In the third couplet the poet compares himself to the prophet Jacob, whose eyes turned white from weeping over his separation from Joseph (Yusuf 12:84). In the fifth, a speck of the beloved's fingernail would not be exchanged even for the whole kingdom of the prophet Solomon. The address to the goldsmith in the sixth couplet asks for care so that the ring to be placed on the beloved should not hurt his finger; the beloved's delicacy is expressed through an image of craft. The nightingale in the eighth couplet is like a mourner scattering the soil of the rose garden. The plays of sound built around the words "dâg / dağ" (scar / mountain), "ağ / ak" (white) and "ırmak" (river) turn the ghazal's rhyme scheme into a play on words.
Historical Context
Nigârî was born in the village of Cicimli, attached to the town of Bergüşad in the Zengezur district of Karabağ, left his homeland in the mid-1850s because of Russian pressure, and spent the last thirty years of his life in Amasya and Merzifon. When the ghazal was written is not known; its longing for the homeland fits the poet's years in Anatolia, but this is an inference. TEİS records that Nigârî also describes the beauties of Karabağ in his mesnevi Çaynâme. For the poet's literary personality see Nigârî: Poet and Works.
Bibliography
- Parvana Bayram, "Nigârî, Seyyid Mîr Hamza", Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü, 2014 (updated 2020), section "Eserlerinden Örnekler". https://teis.yesevi.edu.tr/madde-detay/nigari-seyyid-mir-hamza
- Mir Hamza Seyyid Nigârî, Divan-ı Seyyid Nigârî, ed. A. Azmi Bilgin, Istanbul: Kule İletişim Hizmetleri, 2003, p. 209 (as quoted in TEİS).
Online sources
