I do to others what they do to me, only worse.

I ask you, why did the gods inflict me with brothers?

Mon père m'a donné un cœur, mais vous l'avez fait battre.

Whatever I am, you did it.

O faithless brother what has happened that in vain you joined hands to violate my honour, and to stain your own hand with my blood. You gathered round yourself a band of persons addicted to vice … you excited this gang of villains to hate me … I appointed you to act for me. I ordered my friends to obey you … you are now out to destroy me. I was your guest you abused me. You swore at me in my face. That which you yourself deserved you ascribed to me. You inspired your servants with rancorous hatred of me. Even you taught your own barber your own falsehoods. He gave false evidence against the truth. You set in motion this great sedition …. Outwardly you pretended to be my friend. You attended my feast. You ate my meal of trust. Inwardly you manifested your falsehood until Shawal 23 [Presumably March 11, 1866] when I was keeping a fast you withheld bread and water from me. … By deceit you intercepted my epistles. Some of them which were to your advantage you paraded before the inhabitants of the city [i.e. Edirne]. At present am in straitened circumstances and you are in affluence. And yet you pretend the contrary.

O child. You are mine, though you do evil.

Because you took advantage of my disadvantage.

Every time you victimized someone,” I said, “you were victimizing yourself. Every act of kindness you’ve done, you’ve done to yourself. Every happy and sad moment ever experienced by any human was, or will be, experienced by you.

Oh, you have choked me, but I gave you the leash.
You have gutted me but I gave you the knife.
You have devoured me, but I laid myself across the fire.

Because you took advantage of a sinner
Because you took advantage
Because you took
because you took advantage of my disadvantage

Another inch of your life, sacrificed for your brother, in the nick of time.

What did I do to deserve this?

Those to whom evil is done,
do evil in return

When you made me into another, I left you with me.