Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Mezâk-ı ân-ı Leylâyı giriftâr olmayan bilmez
Şarâbın neş’esin zîrâ şarâb-hâr olmayan bilmez
Sevenler nâm u nâmûsı mey-i sevdâya cân virmez
Cünûnluk ‘âlemin ‘âlemde bî-‘âr olmayan bilmez
Degül vâkıf rumûza görmeyenler nergis-i mestin
Rumûz-ı nergis-i mestin nazar-dâr olmayan bilmez
Ne devlet olduğun vuslat ne bilsün çekmeyen firkat
Selâmet ni‘metin derde giriftâr olmayan bilmez
Hevâ-yı zülfdendir ‘âşık-ı şeydâya cem‘iyyet
Bu kârı zülf ile hem-reng hem-kâr olmayan bilmez
Bir esrâr-ı hafîdir anlamaz hakîkatın vâ‘iz
Ene'l-Hak sırrını zîrâ ki ber-dâr olmayan bilmez
Neler Seyyid Nigârî çekdigin Ferhâd-ı şeydâ tek
Tutup dâmân-ı kûhı sâkin-i gâr olmayan bilmez

In English

1. One who is not captivated does not know the taste of Leylâ's charm; for one who does not drink wine does not know the delight of wine.

2. Those who love their name and honour do not give their lives for the wine of passion; one who has not cast off shame in this world does not know the world of madness.

3. Those who have not seen his drunken narcissus eye do not grasp the signs; one who is not a master of the gaze does not know the signs of that drunken narcissus.

4. How should one who has not suffered separation know what fortune union is; one who has not been caught by pain does not know the blessing of well-being.

5. The composure of the frenzied lover comes from desire for the tresses; one who is not of one colour and one work with the tresses does not know this matter.

6. It is a hidden secret, the preacher does not grasp its truth; for one who has not been raised on the gallows does not know the secret of "Ene'l-Hak".

7. What Seyyid Nigârî has suffered, like the frenzied Ferhad, is not known to one who has not clung to the skirts of the mountain and dwelt in a cave.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

It is a ghazal of seven couplets. The redif (refrain) is "olmayan bilmez" ("one who is not ... does not know"), and the rhyme is the sound "-âr" in "giriftâr, şarâb-hâr, bî-‘âr, nazar-dâr, hem-kâr, ber-dâr, gâr"; in the fourth couplet the word "giriftâr" repeats the rhyme of the first. Both lines of the opening couplet end with the same rhyme and refrain; the pen name appears in the last couplet as "Seyyid 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 103.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

Every couplet of the ghazal repeats the same judgement: only one who has lived it knows what love, union, madness and truth are. The refrain "olmayan bilmez" rebuilds this thought in each couplet and gives the ghazal the rhythm of a maxim. Each couplet proceeds by a contrast: the one who drinks wine and the one who does not, the one who loves his honour and the one who has cast off shame, the one who suffers separation and the one who does not, the one raised on the gallows and the preacher.

There are three great allusions in the ghazal. Leylâ in the first couplet points to the story of Leylâ and Mecnun; Ferhad in the last to Ferhad, who cut through the mountain for his beloved Şirin; and the "secret of Ene'l-Hak" and "ber-dâr" (on the gallows) in the sixth to Hallâc-ı Mansûr (al-Hallaj), sent to the gallows for that saying. It is known that the story of Ferhad and Şirin was localised in Amasya and that the town's water channel is attributed to Ferhad; but there is no explicit reference to Amasya in Nigârî's couplet, and this connection is our own reminder. In the fifth couplet a contrast is drawn between the disorder of the tresses and the composure ("cem‘iyyet") of the lover's heart: the tresses are dishevelled, yet the lover's peace lies in them. In the sixth the preacher is set against the lover as one who does not understand the secret of love; TEİS too records that Nigârî often lashes out at ascetics, preachers and the over-pious in his poems.

Historical Context

When and where the ghazal was written is not known. TEİS writes that in his classical-style poems Nigârî presents the profile of an accomplished divan poet and that he followed Fuzûlî and Nebâtî; the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi likewise records that he held himself superior to heroes of love such as Ferhad, Vâmık and Mecnun, and said that the delight of love cannot be known by one who is not a lover. This ghazal is a direct example of those assessments. For the poet's literary personality see Nigârî: Poet and Works.

Bibliography

Academic studies

Books

  • 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. 103 (as quoted in TEİS).

Online sources