Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mefâ‘îlün Mefâ‘îlün Fe‘ûlün

Dem-â-dem iksîr-i mihrin nigârâ
Feşân it kıl bu hâki zer–i sârâ
Beyâbân-ı talebde bî–refîkım
Refîk-ı ülfetin yâra Nigârâ
Enîsim mûnisim yârim nigârım
Hayâlin kıl dem-â-dem Kirdigârâ
Yetîmem ü bî–nevâyam ârzûyam
Kerem kıl dem-be-dem lutf it Hudârâ
Dem-â-dem eyle kıl sermest-i yem tâ
Cem‘ olsun cümle seyrim-çün sükârâ
Şeker-bâr eyle eş‘âr-ı şirînim
Be-pîrân-ı Semerkand u Buhârâ
Zebânım it sen ey şîrîn tekellüm
Mahabbet sohbetinde kand-hârâ
Benim güftârıma vir bir eser kim
İşitse nerm olsun seng-i hârâ
Diler Mîr Nigârî vasl dâim
Hudârâ lutf kıl Perverdigârâ

In English

1. O beloved, scatter the elixir of love every moment; turn this dust (that is, me) into pure gold.

2. In the desert of seeking I have no companion; O Nigâr, make the companionship of your intimacy my friend. (The line is not certain; "yâra" has been understood as "yâr eyle", make a friend.)

3. (Be) my friend, my comfort, my love, my beloved; O Creator, make your image my companion every moment.

4. I am an orphan, I am destitute, I am full of longing (for you); for God's sake, be generous and kind every moment.

5. Make me every moment drunk as with a sea, so that all the drunkards may gather to watch me. (The reading is uncertain; "sermest-i yem" has been taken to mean lost to oneself in a sea of wine.)

6. Make my sweet poems rain sugar on the elders of Samarkand and Bukhara.

7. O sweet-spoken one, make my tongue a sugar-chewing tongue in the conversation of love.

8. Give my words such an effect that even hard granite would soften on hearing them.

9. Mîr Nigârî always longs for union; O Lord, for God's sake, be kind.

Literary and Historical Commentary

A prayer stretches between the first and the last word of the ghazal. The one addressed is the "nigâr" of divan poetry, the beloved; but when the words "Kirdigârâ" (O Creator) in the third couplet, "Hudârâ" (for God's sake) in the fourth and "Perverdigârâ" (O Lord) in the last arrive, it becomes clear who the beloved is. The poem is a münacat, a prayer to God, and the language of the beloved and the language of prayer have merged into one another here.

In this ghazal Nigârî plays with his own pen name. In the opening couplet "nigârâ" means O beloved; in the second couplet the same word returns as "Nigârâ", in the third it becomes "nigârım" (my beloved), and in the last couplet the poet's name appears as "Mîr Nigârî". The pen name can be understood as "belonging to the nigâr", bound to the beloved; the poet presents his own name as though it were derived from the name of the beloved to whom he prays. According to tradition he took his pen name in his youth from a lady named Nigâr who helped him with his studies; the poem turns this worldly name into a divine address.

The "-ârâ" sounds of the rhyme and the pair "Semerkand u Buhârâ" in the sixth couplet remind a reader who knows Persian poetry of Hafez's famous ghazal "Eger ân Türk-i Şîrâzî"; there too Samarkand and Bukhara share the rhyme. Elsewhere in his divan Nigârî ranks himself with Hafez and also asks him for help. In this ghazal, however, Samarkand and Bukhara also have a particular meaning for the poet: Bahâeddin Nakşibend, founder of the Naqshbandi path, was from Bukhara, and the great sheikhs of the order were raised in these two cities. To wish that his poems should taste sweet as sugar "to the elders of Samarkand and Bukhara" is, in the mouth of a Naqshbandi sheikh, a wish directed at the masters of his own spiritual lineage.

The elixir of the first couplet is the substance believed to turn copper or dust into gold; the elixir of love turns a person's dust into gold. In the eighth couplet the poet asks for power in his words, and "seng-i hârâ", the hardest stone, softens on hearing them. These two couplets frame the ghazal as a prayer for transformation: first let the poet himself turn to gold, then let his words melt stone. The edition scans these short lines of prayer as "mefâ‘îlün mefâ‘îlün fe‘ûlün".

Bibliography

Online sources