1. I see fate sometimes victorious, sometimes vanquished,
So do not reproach, fate does not hear a reproacher,

2. Nor believe it, there is no pity in the wilderness,
Nor are you one to let mercy escape you.

3. The one with endurance prevailed and became ruler,
And the defeated kept aside and became a monk.

4. To some people ability escaped so they clung on,
And though not created as lions, they lived as foxes.

5. My spirit sends its regards to Machiavelli’s soul
And clouds leave his grave growing with plants.

6. He showed us the face of truth after
The world had cast over it a veil and screen.

7. And if I disclosed defects to show you all,
I would show you wonders among people, even prophets.

8. I would show you that benefits are pictured
As praise, and deprivation from them as faults.

9. I would show you man is a fox,
Who walks deprived yet raids you as a plunderer.

10. To protect “selfishness” curriculums were set up
Which poured ordeals and tribulations over people.

11. The politician drags his opponents over them
And the religious man attains through them his goals.

12. So if you see me crying out bitterly over the ordeal upon people,
It is not because I am sensitive, but because

13. I wanted support and company against the days,
It is myself, everything falls away when it is safe.

14. Yes, perhaps I love it more than others
Because desire and goals draw me to it.

15. And if my self was enabled, it would send a storm
Over people, scattering them, and burst out violently.

16. So if I were religious, I would have taken
Mohammed, Jesus and Moses as proof and mounts.

17. I would have seized the money of orphans, legitimized it,
And collected it in the name of religion by force.

18. I would have paved for myself a luxurious living in its shade,
And enjoyed it, then my relatives.

19. And if I were a politician, I would have left
No tusks for those I doubted and suspected.

20. I would have taken the people with assumption, counted their steps,
And gone to the subtleties of hearts for reckoning.

21. And I would not have seen in the atrocious sin I committed
Except that I had performed my duty to the rule.

22. So if I could not bear to demolish a house openly
I would come and demolish houses indirectly.

23. I would resort to the constitution in every strait,
Interpret from it what I see suitable.

24. And wield it as a sword, execute and make a calamity
Worse than an Indian sword and more piercing.

25. With it I would silence mouths, right and wrong,
And strangle breaths and talents.

26. I would destroy with it a council I do not want
Even if it included free spirited honorable men.

27. And I would build on it for myself another council,
Appointing flatterers on it as wages.

28. I would gather in it my friends and family
As a house gathers family and comrades.

29. So if this did not work, I would resort to another,
Lighter in harm than it and gentler.

30. I would nominate one the people do not know by name,
Keep the distinguished and foreigners away from him.

31. I would employ them for a while for myself, and sometimes,
Inflict on the nations through them afflictions.

32. And I would entice a poet with favors, make him enchanted,
And lavish a writer with money, make him deceived.

33. For this is called wisdom and governance,
While the other is counted as faults.

34. And if I were an artist, or worker,
Or illiterate, or earner.

35. And whoever I were, an individual, I would
Exert to destroy others, working hard.

36. I would not know history raging angrily at me,
Nor conscience turning away wrathfully.

37. For excuses were only for the lazy,
And I was nothing but an ambitious soul leaping up.

38. Leave me, leave me, do not stir up my aspirations,
Nor send from me passions that give.

39. So do not reproach fate, it does not hear a reproacher,
And do not believe it, there is no pity in the wilderness.