Stream of Zemzem
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Jump to navigationJump to search- Zemzem, or Zamzam: the sacred well within the precincts of the mosque at Mecca; Joyce's spelling leads J. S. Atherton to speculate whether Joyce took this reference not from his usual source for such matters (T. P. Hughes's Dictionary of Islam) but from the Introductory Discourse to George Sale's translation of the Koran (London, 1825): "The last thing I shall take notice of in the temple is the well Zemzem, on the east side of the Caaba, and which is covered with a small building and cupola. The Mohammedans are persuaded it is the very spring which gushed out for the relief of Ishmael, when Hagar his mother wandered with him in the desert; and some pretend it was so named from her calling to him, when she spied it, in the Egyptian tongue, Zem, zem, that is, Stay, stay, though it seems rather to have had the name from the murmuring of its waters. The water of this will is reckoned holy, and is highly reverenced, being not only drunk with particular devotion by the pilgrims, but also sent in bottles, as a great rarity, to most parts of the Mohammedan dominions. Abd'allah, surnamed al Hâfedh, from his great memory, particularly as to the traditions of Mohammed, gave out that he acquired that faculty by drinking large draughts of Zemzem water, to which I really believe it as efficacious as that of Helicon to the inspiring of a poet."
