1. Are these the dwellings of the people that time has changed?
So they bent over it, weep for it O traveler!

2. Erase them, O passer of eras and their repeater
When an era passes, another repeats after it.

3. We ask her: where are her inhabitants?
Does the abandoned, desolate abode speak?

4. You see an eighty year old whose tears
From prolonged weeping reddened his white hair.

5. He wept for a nation whose glories of yore
Were destroyed by the betrayals of fate.

6. The south and the north attacked it
And did not stop until victory was made possible for them.

7. Alas! It is Egypt that suffered because of us
So woe to Egypt! What did Egypt suffer?

8. Its lost glory cannot be restored
By its sons, who have no glory or pride.

9. They slept away from it, and their sleep was prolonged
I ransom you with my soul, arise, for dawn has risen!

10. Do you not see that your affairs have been divided
By foreign hands? Make haste! Do you have any control?

11. Is there no freeman among you who, if he calls
To reform, a freeman will respond to him?

12. Two honorable men, when invited to a glorious deed,
Will not cower, nor refrain when called to it.

13. Both are resolute and prudent,
Feared by frightening tribulations, but they do not know fear.

14. They are the treasure of nations, if disaster befalls,
Leaving them helpless and deprived of treasure.