1. I plead for your help, O you whom false accusations besiege,
O you of singular wisdom, since fanciful notions are delusion’s realm,

2. And who has an arm to lend support when I have neither leg nor foot?
For man’s heedlessness there are incompatible descriptions,

3. And blame is avoided while praise is welcomed.
So heedlessness about another’s right is baseness,

4. While heedlessness of one’s own right is nobility.
I have appealed to you in the name of past obligations

5. That the passage of time at your place cannot erase.
They have become pledges, though once they were face-to-face encounters,

6. For glory lies in keeping pledges and obligations sacrosanct.
A man may sit secure in a well-guarded mansion,

7. Though it shelters none but the ignoble and base.
No discretion or taciturnity keeps him from addressing it,

8. Deaf, mute, oblivious that it is.
O light of sublime knowledge, descendant of the noble,

9. How could you tyrannize when you are fire and enlightenment?
Virtues alone are not preserves closed off

10. From moral excellence ― no, all are its preserves.