Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Sabrum dükendi lâzım olupdur bana sefer

In English

1. My patience is spent; now I must take to the road.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

Kınalızâde Hasan Çelebi sets this line into his account of Hayâtî's life under the heading "Mısrâ'" (line) and writes that the poet set out on his journey saying ("diyüp") these words. The tezkire does not state whether the line was taken from a ghazal, whether it was Hayâtî's own verse, or whether it was recited as someone else's words. Its attribution is therefore an open question, and it is published here as words linked to the poet. The tezkire gives no metre; we read the line in the muzâri pattern mef'ûlü fâilâtü mefâîlü fâilün. Âşık Çelebi, describing the same journey, does not mention this line; he quotes instead a different couplet that Hayâtî recited as he left for Egypt.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The line expresses, in plain Turkish, a common theme of divan poetry: the lover who can no longer bear the beloved's indifference and resolves to leave the city. It is built less on figures of speech than on a naturalness close to the spoken language. "Dükenmek" is an old form of the verb tükenmek, to run out, and "olupdur" means "has become." The relation of cause and effect between patience running out and the journey becoming necessary makes the line a self-contained statement. That closed shape also suggests it may be less a piece broken off from a ghazal than a saying that sums up a situation and passes from mouth to mouth; the tezkire is silent on the matter.

Historical Context

According to Kınalızâde, Hayâtî settled at Eyüp with the money he had earned from his services in Damascus and Aleppo, then fell in love with a beautiful youth and spent all his wealth for his sake. In the end, when he no longer had the strength to bear this affliction, he went to Mecca saying these words, made a living there with the help of his brother Memâtî, who was superintendent of Jidda, and died shortly afterwards. The line thus becomes the tezkire's expression of the poet's migration from Istanbul to the Hejaz. Kınalızâde's Hayâtî and Latîfî's Hayâtî of Merzifon are taken to be the same person; the biography Hayâtî Çelebi of Merzifon sets out the grounds of this identification in detail.

Bibliography

Online sources