1. Is there a country whose people death lays bare,
So that country may be sought in luxuriant wilds?

2. The newborn is wretched, his parents wretched because of him,
And he prospers who was not misled by his mind into having a child.

3. When he joins the brave, their neighbors,
Or the generous, whether miserly or destitute,

4. Greatness and leanness have built from them ruins
As though the land, the plain, and the hill were made from it.