1. I have been composing poems since my youth,
So how can today's masterpieces startle my heart?

2. The nights have worn me out, O son of Hurrah,
Yet with their constant grinding, my molars do not soften.

3. To me, the ups and downs of fate are equal;
It gives me nothing, and it holds nothing back.

4. By my life! Let it do whatever it wants;
In my eyes, everything it does is insignificant.

5. I will recite poems not from inability, but from enthusiasm,
"O God, which events shall I compose?"

6. And which enemies shall I beware, when they are like pebbles -
Numerous, yet each is tiny and ineffectual?

7. Wherever I glance, I see among them
An angry brother with a grudge, his intestines boiling,

8. Who, when he sees me, averts his gaze,
As if I were a spear lodged between his ribs.

9. But my warbling at dawn is enough for me
As they crowd together wherever we gather.

10. I show them that I am oblivious to their lowly status,
And that I have mature resolve to oppose them.

11. Like a wolf of the wilderness - approach him while he walks
And he is gentle, but if you leap at him, he will bite back -

12. He sleeps with one eyelid open, vigilant,
And with the other eyelid guards himself from enemies.