Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Heading: BİÑ İKİ YÜZ ḲIRḲDA CEMĀẔİYE’L-ĀḪİRİÑ ON İKİNCİ GÜNİ DĪGER OĠLUM ES-SEYYİD AḤMED ṬAYYİB DÜNYĀYA GELDİGİNDE YİNE OL MA‘ĀRİF-PERVER ḤAŻRET-İ MAẒHAR EFENDİNİÑ GÖNDERDİGİ TĀRĪḪDİR

Metre: fā‘ilātün / fā‘ilātün / fā‘ilün

Ṣulb-ı pākinden cenāb-ı Vāżıḥıñ
Virdi bir mevlūd Ḥaḳ ‘azze ve cel
Söyledi Maẓhar anıñ tārīḫini
Ṭoġdı Seyyid Aḥmed-i Ṭayyib güzel (1240)

In English

1. God, the mighty and glorious, has given a child from the pure loins of his excellency Vâzıh.

2. Mazhar spoke its chronogram: "Seyyid Ahmed-i Tayyib is born fair."

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

These two couplets are not by Vâzıh but by his friend Mazhar Efendi. The heading in the manuscript reads: "This is the chronogram sent, again, by that lover of learning, his excellency Mazhar Efendi, when my other son es-Seyyid Ahmed Tayyib came into the world on the twelfth day of Cemâziyelâhir in the year 1240." The year 1240 corresponds to 1824-25. The poem is in a short pattern of the remel metre, "fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün"; the rhyme falls between "cel" and "güzel". A chronogram (tarih) gives the year of an event through a phrase or line whose letters, added up by their numerical values (the ebced system), yield that year. The chronogram is the whole of the last line.

Written as "طوغدی سید احمد طیب گوزل", the line gives "ṭoġdı" (ṭā, vav, ghayn, dāl, ye) 1029, "Seyyid" 74, "Aḥmed" 53, "Ṭayyib" 21 and "güzel" (kef, vav, ze, lām) 63; the total is exactly 1240. The calculation is ours and assumes that the manuscript spells the words in this way. The value of a thousand carried by the letter ghayn in "ṭoġdı" made it easier to reach a large year in a short line.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The poem is short and formal. The first couplet presents the child as a gift of God and names Vâzıh respectfully with the word "cenâb" (his excellency); the Arabic blessing "‘azze ve celle" (mighty and glorious is He) is shortened to "‘azze ve cel" for the metre. In the second couplet Mazhar uses his pen name. The last word of the chronogram line, "güzel" (fair, beautiful), is like a Turkish equivalent of "Ṭayyib" (good, pure, fair) in the child's name; this closeness between name and epithet creates a congruence (tenasüp). The analysis is ours.

Historical Context

Vâzıh himself also wrote a two-couplet chronogram for the same birth, in which he calls himself "pīr ü şikeste", old and broken (Chronogram 11). Babaarslan writes that we learn from Vâzıh's chronograms that Ahmed Tayyib died at the age of three or four; Özçakmak states that the child died in 1243 (1827-28). Three years earlier Mazhar Efendi had sent two chronograms, one Persian-Arabic and one Turkish, for the birth of Vâzıh's elder son Ni'metullah (Chronograms 8 and 9). It is possible that Vâzıh in turn wrote a chronogram for the birth of a son of Mazhar's; Chronograms 17 and 18 are notable in this respect.

Bibliography

Academic studies

  • Giyasi Babaarslan, "Amasyalı Vâzıh ve Dîvânçesi", Akademik Dil ve Edebiyat Dergisi, 5(4), 2021, pp. 1922-1984 (text of the poem: p. 1975; Mustafa Vâzıh, Dîvânçe, Ankara University, Department of Manuscripts, Mustafa Con A 495/III, fol. 73b). https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/akaded/article/993264
  • Giyasi Babaarslan, "Amasyalı Vâzıh ve Dîvânçesi", Akademik Dil ve Edebiyat Dergisi, 5(4), 2021, pp. 1924-1930 (life and description of the Dîvânçe; chronograms and those by other poets: pp. 1929-1930). https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/akaded/article/993264
  • Fatma Özçakmak, "Mustafa Vâzıh Efendi ve Dîvânçe'si", Kesit Akademi Dergisi, 7(26), 2021, pp. 255-278, p. 262.

Online sources