1. My days crept and crept me by
An age, yet I did not weaken nor weaken

2. Neither her will was frail, nor was my will
The pick collided with the pick

3. She threw but left no joint intact
Yet she swerved from killing

4. Would that she were deaf! For I do not seek
A life with her if I were not killed

5. No good in enduring turbulence
Where the patient hopes not for calm

6. I endured adversity with the patience of one
Who is led to death indifferently

7. No merit in the patience of one resigned
To inaction who did not act

8. Twenty years passed and my state unchanged
How alike is the end to the start!

9. I go to work tattered
In rags that did not clothe or cover

10. Baring my body as my spirit bared
With copious tears streaming unchecked

11. As if they were an Egyptian veil
That does not conceal the face of the reviler

12. Sorrow sways me swaying
Between the south wind and the north

13. Whoever saw me thought it was joy
Nay, by the cup of sorrow, not chains

14. I spend my day going and returning
As if I were a machine in the factory

15. And the owner is not pleased with me
Except with backbreaking toil

16. If I complain of meager wages
He dismisses me with insults and gracelessness

17. Until I return to my home
And find dire living conditions there

18. I see my days complaining of folds
To hungry orphans stripped bare

19. I stay up while eyelids in slumber
As if tied to wither

20. Among small children laid in the gloom
Shedding the tears of the bereft wet nurse

21. Among the unsteady of step, unsupported
And a newborn who has not yet turned over

22. They call to a mother consumed by sorrow
Beware the day of grievous mishap

23. And a father heedless of sustaining them
In life, oblivious horseman thrown off

24. The caprice of fate continued to seize me
With one dire puzzle after another

25. Until it cast me into what left
Only remnants of spirit in the body

26. So here I am today, broken by misery
With naught but patience as fortress

27. In the inferno of heat, no shade protects me
Nor do I seek the gift of slept eyes

28. This is misery, is there any hero
Who attained in misery what I attained?

29. So O, delighted of eye in his time
Live soft in your blessed lineage

30. And give me a single delicate drop
From between those dripping locks

31. And have mercy on children like chicks
Lamenting around me and hammering

32. Be good to them in my life and win
Through them the reward of the gracious patron

33. My voice is hoarse, my thoughts scattered
And that curse has undone my words