1. How can you scheme when fate is already decided?
You reap harm and say you are compelled.

2. Our spirits are with us yet we have no
Knowledge of them, so what when the graves contain them?

3. And when its ally of forty years is done with,
The person grows small while events grow large.

4. A soul feels the matter of another; this one
Is a bridge to it, crossed by fears.

5. Who will relieve the buried one by opening his grave
So he can get up, unkempt and dusty?

6. And time advances, friends pass away,
And weakness confirms what we are told.

7. Those philosophers who waded into deep waters
Claimed that the breaking of death cannot be mended.

8. They talked while Adam was like Upright and mankind
Was ignorant, as a fool is ignorant.

9. All those who tell you tales about your Master
Are liars; an arrogant Jew transmitted to you lies.

10. The arrogant scholars sought livelihood
In this world, though the work was ugly.

11. Mankind was inverted by wisdom from its Lord,
So the Hegira era ruled it, and it grew mighty.

12. Lies are always told from the pulpits—
Will the pulpit never sway from what is said?

13. The best of their perfumes is blood of gazelles
And ambergris from whales—that is amber.

14. Maybe this world of ours is like the dream of a sleeper,
Symbolically opposite to what we are in.

15. So the eye weeps in a dream and thus attains
Joy, while awake it laughs and so expresses grief.

16. The soul has no patience for what has reached it
But only resigns itself unwillingly.

17. The pretentious one may leave dressed up as a rebel or villager
Then come home to find his grave waiting for him.