1. O man of letters, Egypt greets you,
The bond of virtue is strong between the virtuous,

2. Your benefit to people obligates gratitude to you,
Though little gratitude suffices for great benefit.

3. Every era, if given the choice,
Would wish that it were your era,

4. Blessed among eras of glory is an era
That did not lack splendor and pride,

5. The era of the sun of kings, adorned with meteors,
Radiant, and you are the full moon among them.

6. Oh, learned one! What reader of a book
Has not set its date by your book?

7. What ear inclined toward eloquence
Has not been intoxicated by your rhetoric?

8. What aspirant, striving upwards,
Has not been gripped by your arts?

9. All that is life, in feeling and thought,
Is feeling to your heart and thought to your mind.

10. You have a soul as though it were all souls
And as though the unseen to you were manifest.

11. All knowledge is as though to you it were knowledge,
All news as though to you it were news.

12. No secret is hidden from you
That a breast might conceal in its depths.

13. You are the keen-eyed falcon looking down
From on high, so what is in the dust, if you gaze?

14. You have discerned what is sound and what untrue,
So you clarified it, and your critique is free.

15. You seek reform for the people of what
Their unruly instincts have corrupted in them.

16. Half serious, half laughing with charm,
Your words cheer and delight.

17. And of old, what pleased the sick best
Was sweetening what had become bitter.

18. Who makes easy for people what grieves them
Facilitates teaching what in it is difficult.

19. Creation is just as you described, and in it
Are flaws and faults that give offense.

20. You knew them best, so you were most merciful,
As much as failing allows excuse.

21. Beautiful is your warding harm from them,
If you intend thereby no injury.

22. For brusqueness makes desolate those whose counsel
Lacks gentleness, so they are stubborn.

23.
Your nature purifies and refines

24. The essence of the heart, so it is purity itself.
The people have wronged you, but that has never

25. Incited you to hurt even one day.
To the extent you suffered, you showed

26. Kindness to the wretched and righteousness.
You remained a guide to the people by the most excellent,

27. Never bending or in your soul suspect.
You did not fall short, nor did palace

28. Of a mighty king bar you from what you sought.
You thrive forever, and for evil there is frustration,

29. And for good, in the outcome, victory.
If you compose verse, it is of softness

30. And subtlety and smooth flow, prose.
If you write prose, it is of rapture

31. And brilliant wit, poetry.
Your words are pearls beyond price—

32. No price is too high for one who says you are a sea.
You have the outstanding in every genre;

33. Cataloguing your masterpieces nearly exhausts counting.
O France, your children are suns and flowers

34. In the sky of ascendance, knowledge and art.
O France, friend of the East, ever