Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: fe‘ilātün / mefā‘ilün / fe‘ilün

Vāżıḥ-ı pīr ü şikestesine
Bir oġul daḫi virdi ol Vāhib
Geldi bir müjde-ber didi tārīḫ
Ṭoġdı es-Seyyid Aḥmed eṭ-Ṭayyib (1240)

In English

1. The Bestower (God) gave one more son to old and broken Vâzıh.

2. A bearer of good news came and gave its chronogram: "es-Seyyid Ahmed et-Tayyib is born".

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

Babaarslan records this two-couplet poem as "chronogram for the birth of his son Seyyid Ahmed Tayyib (1240)"; the year 1240 corresponds to 1824-25. The poem is in the short hafif pattern "fe‘ilātün mefā‘ilün fe‘ilün". The rhyme falls between "Vāhib" and "Ṭayyib". 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 date is given by the second line of the second couplet, "Ṭoġdı es-Seyyid Aḥmed eṭ-Ṭayyib".

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The poem is extremely short and plain. The poet calls himself "pīr ü şikeste", old and broken; in 1240 he was sixty-three. Naming God as "Vāhib" (the Bestower) says that the child is seen as a gift. "Vāhib" and "Ṭayyib" (good, pure) in the child's name meet in the rhyme. The messenger bringing the news recalls the scene in the chronogram for Ni'metullah three years earlier.

Historical Context

Just before this poem the Dîvânçe has a chronogram sent by Mazhar Efendi for the same birth; according to its heading Seyyid Ahmed Tayyib was born on the twelfth of Cemâziyelâhir 1240. Babaarslan writes that we learn from Vâzıh's chronograms that Ahmed Tayyib died at the age of three or four. Özçakmak, relying on the records in Vâzıh's work Güldeste-i Gülistân, states that the child died in 1243 (1827-28). This short couplet of joy is one of the few records left of the son the poet lost.

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. 1976; 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). 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