Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Vāżıḥā ṣu gibi ezberle budur çeşme-i cān
Düşdi ismi ile tārīḫi ‘uyūnü’r-rıżvān (1223)

In English

1. O Vâzıh, learn it by heart like water (fluently): here is the fountain of the soul; its chronogram fell together with its name: "‘Uyūnü'r-rıżvān" (the springs of Paradise).

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This is a one-couplet chronogram for a fountain in the remel pattern "fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilün". Listing the chronograms of the Dîvânçe, Babaarslan records it as a "fountain chronogram (1223)"; the year 1223 corresponds to 1808-09. 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 phrase that gives the date is "‘uyūnü'r-rıżvān" at the end of the second line, "the springs of Rıdvan (Paradise)".

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The first line opens with a play on words: to learn something "like water" means in Turkish to know it fluently, without stumbling. Used in a chronogram written for a fountain, the idiom also revives its literal meaning. "Çeşme-i cān" (fountain of the soul) describes both the structure and the water that gives life. In the second line the words "its chronogram fell with its name" say that the phrase chosen for the date is also the fountain's name; the fountain either bore the name "‘Uyūnü'r-rıżvān" or the poet gave it that name. Naming a fountain after the springs of Paradise expresses a common idea that links charitable water works with Paradise.

Neither the couplet nor any heading says where the fountain stood or who built it. Immediately after this couplet the Dîvânçe has another single-couplet "chronogram for a charitable work", also dated 1223; the two couplets may have been written for different parts of the same work, but this is a conjecture. For Vâzıh's chronograms on other water works in Amasya see Chronograms 6 and 21.

Bibliography

Online sources