1. You have not enjoyed youth, and the days hasten their pace,
So savor pleasure before you are confined.

2. Leave not between two pleasures any gap unfilled,
For youth and adolescence are soon plundered.

3. And say gently to those who chide: “Hush!”
Let their censure find you steadfast when blamed.

4. To my blamers, missing me is arduous
As if their hearts held thorns when I am mentioned.

5. When my youth withers and old age encroaches,
While my vigor still sprouts though my temples turn grey,

6. O you who blame me, tend to others with your advice,
Only fools spurn honey though their mouths are parched.

7. No pure white or dawning
Branch grows unless deep-rooted to hoard rain.

8. I will hear naught of your prattle
Save the beauty of meadows, dales, and streams.

9. I am told you, O Jacob, compose trivial verse
To vilify me, though it is crude and trite.

10. May showers pelt you with hailstones,
Stripping the boughs bare, leaving bushes unquickened.

11. Your compositions target me,
And if you versify, you harvest but chaff, not grain.

12. When singers chant any filth,
All poets flock to it like flies to manure.

13. Its blade cuts through honor, not flesh,
And it sticks to men, not loose women.

14. One misery follows another,
Waves successively swell and subside.

15. My poetry’s long rope guides it,
While yours is but a short tether.

16. By God, my tongue utters no insult against you
Nor lacks decorum in your dishonor.

17. My words ring true
When your wanton young women attest to them.

18. By God, but for the women you control
Sinners would thrive and virtuous women be confined.

19. Chastity makes an elephant slip
As its forelegs outpaces its rear.

20. You never mention a chaste woman
Unless you liken her to a windswept ruin.