1. The wine of sorrows intoxicated me, not the forbidden drink,
And my intoxication with life kept me from sweetness.

2. My friend finds pleasure in wine, but my heart
Refuses to be made happy as he was made happy.

3. I wore the vicissitudes of fate like a rough garment
That chafed me with thorns and tore me with claws.

4. And at every moment I hear a melody
That wounds me with sparks and expands me with estrangement.

5. I struggled with the twists of fate as a child and youth
So it destroyed my resolve, though it did not destroy my patience.

6. I want from life what it does not want from me,
Nor does the thought of it cross its mind.

7. And I ask of it what I deserve its decree,
Not what I, who sought my need by force, deserve.

8. And I have a liver spot from the pith of its determination,
So it makes me ride the rugged ship of its resolution.

9. The wonders of the world tempt me, but I have
A heart that is not tempted by its white henna.

10. I am a fellow of lofty aspirations, ever moving
With determination to traverse the desert or shorten my life.

11. Whoever had my determination between his ribs
Goaded him and made the length of the earth seem to him a span.

12. I kept company with the kings of the earth, rejoicing in them,
And left them with a breast full of disdain.

13. And when I saw the slave possessing the freeman,
I refused with the refusal of the freeman to live as a hireling, even a free one.

14. By my life, Egypt is the land of every wonder,
And nothing rivals this wondrous Obelisk.

15. It is counted first among wonders
As counting starts with the little finger.

16. O hoary pillar of the world, lesson to all!
And O Obelisk, who was your mother, I wonder?

17. A Nubian who did not know that her son
Would be worshipped in Egypt after God.

18. He makes concubines serve him like idols
And subjects the Copts and Gyptians by force.

19. A decree of God Most High which He willed,
Though perhaps His will in this was evil.

20. And God has signs unlike this one.
I think you, Kafur, are His greatest sign.

21. By my life, no time with you in it is good,
Does this time reckon I reckon it time?

22. And I disbelieve, O Kafur, when you appear to me,
So since I left you I have abandoned idolatry and unbelief.

23. I stumbled in my journey to Egypt - no, not stumbled,
Stumbled in leaving it, nor stumbled in reaching it.

24. And I left the best of people, bound for the worst;
The noblest people, heading to the lowliest.

25. So the Mukhassi punished me with betrayal in return
Because my departure was a betrayal of Aleppo.

26. I was but the expresser of an opinion - I did not
Act with resolution or take a shield with me on my journey.

27. I was bold with the vipers of Egypt, so they bit me,
And the bold one was none but he who took the risk.

28.
I will exact from them something like what they inflicted

29. Stripped bare from their tongues, grey with dust.

30. And make dawn a white light when it rises
White when it rises, though red when it sets.

31. So if my soul attains its wish, by its determination,
Or else, I will have conveyed the utmost of its zeal as an excuse.