1. I accepted inferiority when I did not find an equal,
And if I had found one, I would not have accepted inferiority.

2. How often do I struggle, angry or afflicted
By an unreliable friend?

3. I have remained obedient to our circumstances,
While he disobeys me for ages.

4. Away with people who have no loyalty,
I invested affection with them but they filled me with hatred.

5. I continued to visit those who boycott me,
And was intimate with those who distance themselves from me.

6. They boasted that they did not rob me of my lineage,
Irrigating and grazing an ungrateful merit.

7. Every feeble-minded person, captive to his desires,
Deceived by the comforts of life.

8. They thought they had virtue to advance them,
Though truly, advancement is in the hands of rulers.

9. Alas! Virtue is only what your reason and religion love,
The mother of virtues, from intellect and faith.

10. Their purchases were nothing but regretful brothers,
And their sellers were only the cheated.

11. They gathered my sickness, and how much in them and from them
Is medicine for my affliction but does not cure me!

12. Some people say, though I have no authority among them,
I shun them openly, so they shun me.

13. How far between poverty and wealth! I said to them,
What is between the glory of a man among people and lowness!

14. Live alone, not coupled, so no rejection
Except that I am single, not coupled.

15. If I knew that distance would secure me,
I would keep my distance, but my distance does not save me.

16. Who will take me out of my country? It is plague-ridden,
And every disease in creation infects me.

17. I have lived long in its plains,
Fearing its hazards while it chased me.

18. And I have accompanied one who impels me to sin
And incites me to defile honors.

19. I wonder at him—he who is wondrous—
Selling me before he meets and nods to me!

20. On the day of battle, he protects his neck from me,
Though all his life he has targeted me with arrows.

21. And whenever I remove a mote from his eye,
He stays up at night, provoking and spearing me.

22. How often he rides calamities I appease for him,
Yet on a day of joy, he does not appease me!

23. Where can I find a brother, truly dignified,
To lighten his burdens for me sometimes as I do for him?

24. He only meets me in times of distress,
To assist against an evil and comfort me.

25. Thus he gives conveniently but in measured amounts,
Praising me while denying me gifts.

26. Take it as you wish—the world is not eternal,
Nor is remaining for creation guaranteed.

27. You were created from clay when created, so why
Disdain that you be guided back to clay?

28. All mankind returns to dust—
The wealthy, the destitute, the stingy and the generous.

29. Exchanged for dirt instead of their clothes,
And coarseness instead of smoothness and tenderness.

30. Say to him whose hands engraved his wealth,
"Does your wealth avail you, O perishable wealth of Korah?"

31. Where is he who raised the palace you thought
A towering mountain that gleamed from afar?

32. And where is he who looked down on the commoners with arrogance,
Swelling the Umayyads with pride?

33. And where is he who resided in sandals ruling
Over kings, greeted by the winds?

34. As if they were inhabitants of grave dirt—they did not
Inhabit rose gardens among us.

35. They have perished—no trace or news of them,
Except myths of elegy and eulogy.

36. I wish I knew which land will grow me,
And which soil from shoots will raise me!

37. Which moment of moments will I hate
When my pigeons answer as I call them?

38. If I did not grow weary of troubles thrown at me,
Then the troubles of time's circumstances exhaust me.