Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Dime şâir sözüdür sanma yalan
Vâ‘ize yem gerek eşşege palân
Sûfiye lokma gerek zehr ide
Çerçiye pâra ılançıya ılan

In English

1. Do not say "it is a poet's talk", do not think it a lie: the preacher needs fodder, the donkey a pack-saddle.

2. The ascetic needs a morsel, may it poison him; the pedlar needs money, the snake-charmer a snake.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

It is a four-line satirical piece that Hüsameddin quotes as "these two couplets". The first, second and fourth lines rhyme on "yalan, palân, ılan" ("lie, pack-saddle, snake"), while the third is free; with this arrangement the piece resembles a kıt‘a or a rubai (quatrain). The words "ılan" (snake) and "ılançı" (snake-charmer) are forms peculiar to Azerbaijani Turkish; it is known that Azerbaijani and Anatolian Turkish are used together in Nigârî's poetry. Hüsameddin does not state the metre.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The piece is built on an enumeration pairing four social types with a need each: the preacher with fodder, the donkey with a pack-saddle, the ascetic with a morsel, the pedlar with money, the snake-charmer with a snake. Each type is given something that betrays its worth; the preacher's need for fodder brings him close to an animal, while the ascetic's morsel is mentioned with the curse "may it poison him". The wording is very close to popular speech and recalls folk jingles more than the ornate satires of divan poetry. The first line turns the satire into an accusation by telling the reader that this is not merely "a poet's talk" but tells the truth.

There is an arrangement of leff ü neşr (enumeration and matching) between the lines: first the person, then his need, is named. The similarity of sound between "yalan" (lie) and "ılan" (snake) makes a play on words beyond the rhyme. Read without Hüsameddin's explanations of the persons concerned, the piece looks like a general satire; Hüsameddin, however, says that each type targeted a particular person in Amasya.

Historical Context

According to Hüsameddin, the sermons in which the scholars of Amasya defended the Sunni creed from the pulpit weighed heavily on Nigârî, and he answered them with unsparing satire; these two couplets are among those satires. Hüsameddin names the targets one by one: the preacher is Hocazâde İbrâhim Efendi, preacher of the Yörgüç Paşa Mosque; the donkey is Hacıoğlu Mahmûd Efendi, known for his asceticism; the ascetic is Sofuzâde Mehmed Hulûsî Efendi, mufti of Amasya; and the pedlar and the snake-charmer are the other scholars who defended the Sunni position. Hüsameddin writes that the best paid of these scholars was the mufti, who received a total of two hundred and fifty kuruş from the muftiship and his teaching post, and that the others lived on alms and the fitre; whereas the sheikh, who satirised them for their love of money, received hundreds of liras from Shirvan and from his followers in addition to a monthly salary of five hundred kuruş. The piece is a record of Nigârî's contentious years in Amasya. For the poet's literary personality see Nigârî: Poet and Works.

Bibliography

Online sources