1. O gatherers of poetry, is there not
Among you a man of valor

2. Who scorns to beg at the doors
Of those who bring shame?

3. How long will you remain
With eyes averted in avoidance?

4. And how often do you die from
Ills that rack the soul?

5. Leave off praise and cool
Your breasts with satire -

6. Mocking the sons of adultery
Can bring some relief,

7. And raillery may heal
The sickness in hearts.

8. No blood-price is owed for killing
Vile men who deny virtue,

9. A gang who aggrieve
The noble and high-minded,

10. Commanding no good,
Forbidding no evil.

11. The rhymes of verse rebel
Against praising them,

12. Meters break and lose form
When put to lampooning them.

13. They have souls filled
With poverty and grasping hands.

14. Their faces are more repulsive
Than skulls picked clean.

15. The hues of modesty long since
Faded from their color.

16. Their vile speech is more rotten
ThanAdd to dictionary the foulest privy.

17. They have no princely traits
Save their borrowed titles.

18. They are content if their halls
And edifices are exalted.

19. Homes less fit for them
Would be ruins and rubble

20. Heaped in courtyards wide -
How many misgivings and fears

21. Their houses hide,
How much baseness and vileness

22. Under cloak and robe!
Never have I brought them

23. Eulogy or congratulations
Without first making intercession

24. And devious petition.
Even their cooked food must have

25. Spices to make it palatable.
Each morn their ways

26. Show more disgrace.
Draw not nigh them, for the ethics

27. Of villains are infectious.
O Lord, save us from souls

28. Fallen into corruption,
And grant us a contentment

29. To make us independent of them!