Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mef ‘ûlü mefâ‘ilün fe‘ûlün

Ey ‘aşk-ı şirîn-kelâmı ahlâ
Senden kamu güft ü gûy-ı zîbâ
Ey ‘aşk-ı lezîz-i hüsn-zâde
Senden kamu nesr ü nazm-ı hüsnâ
Ey ‘aşk-ı cihâna gulgule-endâz
Senden kamu hûy u hây-ı şeydâ
Ey ‘aşk-ı ferahdih tarab-sâz
Senden kamu nagme-i dil-ârâ
Ey ‘aşk-ı şarâb-ı Hak-perestân
Senden çekilür sadâ-yı mînâ
Ey ‘aşk-ı kilîd ü kufl-i esrâr
Senden açılur kamu mu‘ammâ
Ey 'aşk-ı delîl ü pîr-i sâlik
Senden umulur visâl-i Mevlâ
Ey 'aşk-ı Hudâ Hudâ seversen
Vir destime dest-i mey-i sahbâ
Ey 'aşk-ı Nigârî dâğ-dârın
Çık başına çak ayağ-ı sevdâ

In English

1. O love, whose sweet speech is the sweetest; all fine words and talk come from you.

2. O delightful love, born of beauty; all fine prose and verse come from you.

3. O love that fills the world with uproar; all the clamour of the love-crazed comes from you.

4. O love that gladdens the heart and plays the instrument of joy; every heart-adorning melody comes from you.

5. O love, wine of those who worship the Truth (God); the sound of the flask rises from you.

6. O love, key to the lock of secrets; every riddle is opened by you.

7. O love, guide and elder (pîr) of the wayfarer; union with the Lord is hoped for from you.

8. O love, for God's sake, put into my hand the cup of red wine. (The word "dest", hand, occurs twice in the line: "destime dest-i mey"; the second "dest" may be meant here as a cup or a handful of wine.)

9. O love, go up to the head of Nigârî, who is scarred with brands; drain the cup of passion. (The reading of the line is uncertain; "çak" has been taken in the sense of "çakmak", to down a cup in one go.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Each of the nine couplets begins "Ey ‘aşk", "O love". The poet faces love as if it were a person and addresses it by heaping attribute upon attribute; in the first six couplets the second lines also open with the same word, "Senden", "from you". This regular repetition (tekrir) brings the ghazal close to an invocation, perhaps to a hymn meant for communal singing. The ghazal section of the divan begins with this poem, so Nigârî devotes his first ghazal directly to love.

The order of the attributes is not random. In the first two couplets love is the source of speech: sweet words, fine talk, prose and verse all belong to it. The poet has other couplets in which he counts his poetry a gift of love; the editor, A. Azmi Bilgin, singles out in his introduction a couplet in which Nigârî treats his divan as the fruit of love. In the third and fourth couplets love becomes sound and music: a force that fills the world with noise, plays the instrument and arranges melodies. The fifth couplet turns to the image of wine; the phrase "Hak-perestân", those who worship the Truth, makes clear at once what kind of wine this is. "Sadâ-yı mînâ" is the sound of wine poured from the flask into the cup, and it links the melodies of the previous couplet to a new sound.

The sixth and seventh couplets give love the roles of knowledge and guidance. Love is the name of both the lock and the key; riddles that cannot be solved are opened by it. It is also the elder (pîr) who guides the sâlik, the traveller on the Sufi path, and union with God is hoped for from it. This way of speaking puts love in place of the spiritual guide; Nigârî's own sheikh, İsmâil Şirvânî, is reported to have said of him that "his guide is love".

In the last two couplets the tone changes. "Hudâ Hudâ seversen" is an older form of the phrase "Allah'ını seversen", "for God's sake", still heard today, and it brings the warmth of spoken language into the poem. In the closing couplet the word "ayağ" means cup; this usage, common in old Turkish and in the Azerbaijani area, shows the character of Nigârî's language. A single sound serves the whole rhyme: ahlâ, zîbâ, hüsnâ, şeydâ, dil-ârâ, mînâ, mu‘ammâ, Mevlâ, sahbâ and sevdâ all end in a long "â".

Bibliography

Primary sources

Academic studies

  • 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