1. People's faults are hidden in their dwellings
Secretly, where suspicion and doubt arise

2. If honorable men are elevated in their company
Religion and morals are exalted in that place

3. The silversmith may alloy his bright silver
For some defect and adulterate musk and gold

4. So how can one be safe whose nature is evil
Whose thoughts and passions are play and joy?

5. You see the camel's back smooth and flat
Concealing from your sight the mangy scab

6. This is an indication of what I hint
About a group among whom are slander and abasement

7. Their nights have been long in sin, and they have acquiesced
To vileness, so knowledge and morals are lost

8. And the bearers of authority, if they come veiled
Pretending to you pure love, then flee

9. Leave them and disregard them, and be wary
Of your slightest step if you part from them in Aleppo

10. For they are the wolf and the venomous snake
In them are headache, fever of the soul, and itch

11. And choose knowledge and morals
Not one who speaks lies and falsehood

12. And who criticizes the praise of a man of honor
From a miser of despised lineage

13. O you who find fault with my lineage
It is not from my vileness, but yours, that you wonder

14. Whenever I examine my lineage
I find nothing of lineage

15. If people have any nobility from me
It is transmitted from the Arabs

16. My blessing is canine, and my hand
Was created for eating and begging

17. My nature is foolish and acquired
With my hoes and in my confusion

18. And my attainment is not hoped for
How can attainment be hoped from one in ruin?

19. I boast, while being despised
Fallen among people, blameworthy

20. Every insult said about a man
Is upon my honor and my nobility