Mani

Quatrains usually consisting of seven-syllable lines, the speaker is generally unknown. The word bayatı is used instead of the word mani in Eastern Anatolia. The rhyme scheme is in the form aaba.

Examples of the Mani:

People who saw them admired
The twin moles on my face.
How can anyone who loves you
Ever give you up?
Enamelling a bowl,
The girls dance an air,
Tell me for God’s sake,
Can love ever be easy?
Bride in her veil
With her silver hands.
It is clear from your dewy eyes
That you are in love.
Lightning struck us,
Snapped us like a twig,
An enemy came between us,
And the mountains separated us.
It is day in Iraq,
My eyes are weeping,
Everyone’s lover has come
But mine is far away.
I reaped on the plains
And was a thorn to the eyes.
That is how I left,
You are left with the frost.
You have moles on your brow,
In the soil, in the stone,
You are in the spring of your life
And I in the winter.
Reap the sky above,
I let the one I had go,
Everyone asks the same thing,
But nothing about the one in my heart.
I drank water like blood,
Whither do the waters flow,
I never saw,
And do not know whither I shall go.
Have you never been a black chicken
Landing on the branches?
My hideous-faced mother-in-law,
Were you never a bride?
Mani for a new bride’s henna party :

They brought her down the stairs
Robed in great pomp.
My girl, they sent you grief to your hand
Weeping wipes it off, weeping.
The six wells of the stairs
I swam and took in the water.
Girl, your mother’s old temperament
She wipes away by weeping.
She jumped up and crossed the threshold,
Left her spoon on the table.
Girl, your mother’s love
She wipes away be weeping.
A bride has come to our house
And made our village rejoice.
Welcome, reddened bride,
You bring delight and money.
If you are a good girl,
We will praise you,
But if you are bad
We will beat you.
If you are a good girl
You will get your reward,
If you are bad,
The axe and the hatchet.
Girl, may your henna be lucky
And your tongue sweet,
Call your mother to come
And see her daughter made a wife.
Has your father gone to market
And bought his goods?
Did he wish his daughter
The best of luck there?
May your henna be lucky
And your tongue sweet.
Call your mother to come
To see her daughter made a wife.
May your mother burn candles
In front of you.
Call your mother to come
To see her daughter made a wife.
Allah gave her her wish today,
Left her mother without a daughter,
Left their house empty
And their jug without water.
Call her mother to come
To see her daughter made a wife.
Allah gave her her wish today.
They brought her down the stairs
Robed in great pomp.
My girl, they sent you grief to your hand,
May your henna be lucky.
May your tongue be sweet here.
Call the girl’s mother to come
To see her daughter made a wife.
Allah gave her her wish today.
I jumped up and crossed the threshold,
The spoon stayed on the table.
Does any girl ask her mother’s advice?
May your henna be lucky.
May your tongue be sweet here and there.
I sowed lentils, are they finished.
Watch the girl’s mother,
Has she taken the Ankara road?
Has she forgotten her daughter?
May your henna be lucky,
May your henna be lucky,
May your days be lucky here and there.

Drummers’ Manis :

Sung by drummers as they collect alms after the fifteenth day of Ramadan :

My drum has no cord
And my back no shirt.
Give me my alms
So I can buy a shirt.
Why are you sleeping, Why are you sleeping?
What good comes from sleeping?
Perform your ablutions and pray.
Find heaven and your fellows.
Dreamers, dreamers
Sleep by the stove.
When they hear the sound of my drum
They pick the stones out of the rice.
The new mosque needs a pillar,
It takes courage to say this,
My stomach is full
But my friend wants a cake.