The Mirror of My Heart Read online

  Mehri was married to a court doctor who was much older than she was, and many of her poems complain about this. Some seem to imply that she had a lover or two, but this may be no more than convention. Mehri may well have known at least some of the poetry of Jahan Malek Khatun (this page) as Jahan’s poems could have still been in circulation during Mehri’s lifetime, and a court ruled by an empress like Gowhar Shad would be a likely place for a princess’s poems to be valued.

  *

  Between us now, I feel there’s no connection left,

  No loyalty or kindness or affection left;

  You’ve grown so abject and so old, you haven’t got

  The feeble strength to manage an erection left.28

  *

  In your distinguished house, the thing I thought to have—

  it isn’t there;

  The freedom my distracted spirit sought to have—

  it isn’t there;

  You say, “I’ve everything, I’ve untold wealth and luxury.”

  Oh yes, there’s everything: but what I ought to have—

  it isn’t there.

  *

  A young girl married to a man who’s old

  Will find—till she’s old—happiness denied her;

  Better an arrow pierce her side, they say,

  Than have a husband who is old beside her.

  *

  We sleep together, and you never satisfy me;

  I talk to you at night—your silences defy me;

  I’m thirsty, and you claim that you’re the Fount of Life—

  For God’s sake, where’s the water then that you deny me?

  *

  An answer to an old man who proposed himself as her lover:

  Good God, what do you think my flesh is? What?

  It’s handsome men I fancy, young and hot!

  If I liked weak old men, why would I whine

  About the one that I’ve already got?

  *

  I said, “I’m someone whom your eyes forget.”

  He said, “But you like others whom you’ve met.”

  I said, “I know you, you’ve no kindness in you.”

  His answer was, “No, you don’t know me yet.”

  *

  He asked if he might kiss my lips, although

  Not which lips—those above, or those below?

  *

  Don’t be deceived by sweet talk’s pretty gifts—

  Caressing words are what a wet-nurse gives

  The baby when she has no milk to give.

  *

  No night is shorter than a night

  that’s spent with you

  Since as you draw aside your veil

  the sun shines through.

  *

  If I had known to draw my skirts back

  from an old man’s grasp,

  Sorrow would not have grabbed youth’s collar,

  and undone its clasp.

  *

  With welling tears my eyes are always dim

  And it’s my heart that fills them to the brim;

  What can I do . . . my friend is leaving me,

  And all that’s good or bad is following him.

  *

  Old men are cautious with themselves,

  the young are more, “Who cares”?

  It’s older buildings that require

  continual repairs.

  *

  Put up your tousled hair that hides

  your features from my sight—

  Give me my first glimpse of the dawn

  in place of this dark night.

  *

  So, if my friend avoids my company,

  he’s telling me

  That for the same price that he bought me he’s

  now selling me.29

  *

  I’ve found a drop of wine will soon resolve

  Hard problems wise old men have sought to solve

  I wished to tell a candle my heart’s yearning

  All that was in my heart was in its burning

  At dawn I wept; the tulip red as blood

  Told of a heart on fire, and roots in mud

  The tales that nightingales and angels tell

  Are but the magic of your glance’s spell

  I said I’d ask the learnèd and the wise

  Why wine’s so loved . . . and got absurd replies

  A realm gazed wondering on your face, Mehri;

  Alas, alas, for that realm’s brevity!

  Atuni

  Fifteenth century

  “Atuni” is the term for a woman who teaches girls reading, writing, and embroidery. The poet’s actual name is not known. She was married to a cleric, Mulla Baqai, who was a friend of Mir Nezam al-din Ali Shir (1441–1501), a Timurid intellectual, poet, and mystic who lived in Herat, and this gives us approximate dates for when she was alive, and perhaps where she lived. Biographical notices that mention her say that she and her husband used to exchange insulting/joking poems with one another, and this is one such exchange.

  *

  Atuni to her husband:

  Mulla, your teasing and your flirting’s killing me—

  Whenever will your tickling fingers let me be?

  When night comes though, you turn your back on me, and sleep—

  And all your back can give my heart is misery.

  Her husband’s response:

  My friends, this crone has killed me with her tyranny

  And her complaints about my sleeping back to me—

  If I should doze a moment with my back to her

  She pokes me with her finger till she wakens me.

  And her response to his response:

  My bedfellow has killed me with his lethargy,

  His back’s the only part of him I ever see;

  He hasn’t got the strength to lift a languid limb—30

  Better two hundred blows than that back facing me.

  Zaifi Samarqandi

  Fifteenth century

  Nothing is known about the poet’s life, although the first poem given below suggests that she was married, very unsatisfactorily, and the second that she may have been more interested in a same-sex relationship than in being with her annoying husband. Her name suggests that she or her family were from Samarqand.

  *

  My love does nothing for you—it’s too late;

  Flabby old fool, you’re in a wretched state.

  And you’ve the nerve to threaten me with blows?

  You haven’t got the strength to stand up straight!

  *

  Beyond all other longings, Arezu, I longed for you—

  I saw your face, how strong my longing grew, Arezu!31

  Ofaq Jalayer

  Late fifteenth/early sixteenth century

  Ofaq Jalayer’s family were wealthy aristocrats attached to the court of the Timurid soltan Baiqara of Herat (r. 1469–1506). Her husband, Darvish Ali Ketabdar, was governor of Qom for a while and then of Balkh, and ended his life as a courtier of the first Moghul emperor, Babur (r. 1526–30). If she accompanied her husband during his frequent changes of employment, this may account for the second of the poems given here.

  *

  I’ve promised that I’ll give up drinking wine,

  my noble cypress tree—32

  Although you haven’t promised yet you’ll give up

  giving wine to me.

  *

  What’s all this talk of exile

  as a tale of misery?

  Your homeland’s where you’re happiest

  wherever that might be.

  *

  From 1500 to the 1800s

  Pari Khan Kh
anom

  1548–78

  Pari Khan Khanom was the daughter of Shah Tahmasp (the second Safavid shah) and the sister of Esmail, one of the claimants to Tahmasp’s throne. After her father’s death she was briefly de facto ruler of Iran; during the succession struggles she backed Esmail, who briefly became the third Safavid shah; however, he was replaced after two years by his half-brother Mohammad Khodabandeh, whose mother, fearing Pari Khan Khanom’s still considerable influence and power, had her strangled at the age of twenty-nine.

  *

  We cannot lean upon this world

  this emptiness that fades away

  Bring wine my friend, we cannot change

  the destinies we must obey

  We cannot build a house upon

  this flowing flood of emptiness

  Or think of life eternal in

  this ruin where we briefly stay

  It is your eyebrow’s lovely curve1

  to which my heart bows down in worship

  While this is so, my love, my words

  cannot be heartfelt when I pray

  Oh but it’s true, my dear, that when

  your time here’s coming to an end

  All Loqman’s wisdom cannot save2

  your life upon that fatal day3

  Dusti

  Sixteenth century

  All that we know about Dusti is that her father was named Darvish Qayam Sabzevari.

  *

  To see that moon’s disheveled hair’s to be

  In love with his hair’s faithless heresy

  O friends, what aching pain a lover feels—

  When once it’s caught her, there’s no remedy

  Don’t look for sense or order from a lover,

  She’s given up on both of them; Dusti

  Weeps tears like clouds in spring; and spring’s clouds cease

  Their weeping now, she weeps so copiously.

  *

  Though we were friends, at last our friendship ended—

  Alas, that it was you that I befriended.4

  Golchehreh Beigum

  1515–57

  One of the daughters of the first Moghul emperor, Babur (r. 1526–30), Golchehreh Beigum lived most of her life in what is now Afghanistan. She died in 1557, during a visit to India with her sister Golbadan (this page).

  *

  He’s lovely as a rose, and everywhere he goes

  Girls crowd around to hear his jokes and witty scorn—

  Well, as they say, there is no rose without a thorn.

  Golbadan Beigum

  c.1523–1603

  The youngest daughter of the Moghul emperor Babur (r. 1526–1530) and the sister of Golchehreh (this page). One of the most admired and influential of the Moghul princesses, she wrote a biography, which is also partly an autobiography, of her brother Humayun. The elegant refinement of her court, her cultural interests, and her generous charitable endowments made her a model for many subsequent aristocratic Moghul women.

  *

  Be sure that girls who treat their lovers badly

  Are apt to find their lives will end up sadly.

  Bija Shahi

  Sixteenth century

  An Indian courtesan at the court of the Moghul emperor Akbar (r. 1556–1605). Bija Shahi was said to be very beautiful and was also known for her scabrous poems, one of which—making fun of Hakim Abul Fath, an Iranian doctor who had emigrated to India—is given here.

  *

  How long will you caress me mouth to mouth

  Then shove your leather in me back to front?

  If this is all your prick’s inclined to do

  I’d rather have your beard lodged in my cunt.

  Bija Nehani Qa’emi

  Sixteenth century

  The poet’s children were said to have settled in India, but nothing further is known about her.

  *

  I’m getting a divorce, and I’ll be rid of you;

  Damn you—I’ll get two husbands, both of them brand new!

  The first one will be young and handsome, the second

  A burly Turkoman: the youth’s for me, to do

  What sprightly lovers do; the Turkoman’s for you.5

  Tuni

  Sixteenth century?

  Tuni’s dates and provenance are unknown; there seems to have been a brief fashion for obscene poetry by women in the sixteenth century, and this perhaps approximately dates her.

  *

  To her husband, who preferred his male lover to her:

  That nice young man of yours . . . how would it be

  If one night I came with you, to make three?

  You’d be on top, my dear, and have his ass

  While underneath his prick would be for me.

  Bibi Mah Ofaq

  Possibly sixteenth century

  This poet’s dates and provenance are unknown.

  *

  After my husband has made love to me

  I’m left unsatisfied,

  Not for one night with him have my poor heart’s

  desires been gratified—

  And then he says that I’m prohibited

  from finding someone else . . .

  May even heathens never be

  so wretched and so mortified!

  Hejabi

  Late sixteenth/early seventeenth century

  A contemporary of the Safavid king Shah Abbas (r. 1588–1629), Hejabi was from Golpayagan, near Esfahan, and was said to be very beautiful.

  *

  Your vow of chastity prevented my disgrace—

  If you were mad enough that this were not the case

  You would be guilty of an even worse disgrace6

  Jamileh Esfahani

  Late sixteenth/early seventeenth century

  Like Hejabi (this page), the poet was a contemporary of the Safavid king Shah Abbas (r. 1588–1629). Esfahan was the Safavid capital, and her name suggests that she was perhaps associated with the court. She is also known by her pen-name, Fasiheh.

  *

  The day I sat down at love’s feast I hesitated,

  I was afraid that I’d be left alone at last—

  Now I’ve grown old, and drunk the last drop of life’s water,

  How bitterly I look back, and regret my past.

  *

  Within the garden of my fate

  Only harsh thorns of sorrow grew;

  And as they grew they pierced my heart

  Both bit by bit, and through and through.

  *

  I shan’t sleep now in sorrow or in madness

  Nor shall my heart sleep overwhelmed by sadness—

  Your eyes have stolen sleep from me, your slave

  Can never sleep now, even in her grave.

  Nehani Shirazi

  Sixteenth century

  All that is known about Nehani Shirazi is that she was said to be an imitator of the poetry of the poet Jami (1414–92) and that she presumably came from Shiraz.

  *

  I saw her in a dream, and went mad for her sake—

  How would it be if someone saw her when awake?

  Nur Jahan

  1577–1645

  Nur Jahan was born in Qandahar, while her Iranian parents were on their way to India to seek their fortune; her father became a vizier at the court of the emperor Akbar (r. 1556–1605). In 1611 she became the twentieth and last wife of the Moghul emperor Jahangir (r. 1605–27), by which time she was already a widow of thirty-four. Beautiful, intelligent, and well educated, she was by far Jahangir’s favorite wife, and exercised great influence at his court. After Jahangir’s death in 1627, she was sidelined during the squabbles over the succession and spent the rest of her life in comfortable retireme
nt from court politics. She died in Lahore, where she is buried in the Shahdara Gardens.

  *

  A pity that the Chinese mirror broke; but good,

  A means of looking at myself is gone for good.

  *

  They say that with a gentle breeze

  the petals of a rosebud part—

  A smile from my belovèd is

  the key that will unlock my heart.

  The heart cares nothing for the rose,

  for color, scent, complexion, curls . . .

  What captivates a lover’s heart

  is kindness’s bewitching art.

  *

  God help these silly bungling poets

  In love with their incompetence!

  They say their love is like a cypress

  As noble in his elegance,

  His face will certainly eclipse

  The moon in her magnificence;

  The moon’s a disc compared to him

  Imperfect in its radiance,

  The cypress is no more than timber,

  Uncut and of no consequence.7

  *

  My tomb’s a stranger’s, there are no lamps or roses here;

  You’ll find no moth wings, there are no nightingales to hear.8

  *

  I set fire to my soul when I assumed your name;

  I’m like a candle self-consumed within its flame.

  *

  Ramadan’s gone, the new moon has resumed her reign—

  The wine-shop’s key was lost, but it’s been found again.

  Makhfi

  1638–1701

  The poet’s real name was Zib al-Nissa (“Loveliest of Women”). She was the daughter of the Moghul emperor Aurangzib (r. 1658–1707) and sister of Zinat al-Nissa Beigum (this page). Her pen-name, Makhfi, means “hidden,” and she occasionally puns on this. At one time she was engaged to the son of Dara Shukoh, but the marriage never took place, probably because of the opposition of Aurangzib, who was contemptuous of Dara Shukoh (his older brother, and the legitimate heir to the Moghul throne, whom Aurangzib had defeated in a civil war). For twenty years she was kept under house arrest, on the orders of her father, in the Salimgarh fort in Delhi. She never married, although stories circulated about various clandestine affairs, including with Aqel Khan, the governor of Lahore, with whom she exchanged some of the poems given here.