1. They told me to forget or beware
But how can one who loves forget love after having loved?

2. I was burdened with one whose love quenched my heart
My passion was for a beauty and for one who sings

3. A gazelle enchanted me, with languid glance and charm
Of two colors in it, one dark and one bright

4. Smooth-cheeked, velvet-thighed, scented breath
Of musk, ruby, and spirits she is redolent

5. I saw her flirting, wiggling, teasing me
And I who am teased by coquetry am helpless

6. Without cause he shunned me to please a traitor
Misguided and became the slave of an unguided traitor

7. I call him by lamplight like a desert traveler lost
But God knows not what he intends

8. Inconstant one, do not weary yourself, for you are no poet
So seek a man of taste who feels or composes finest verse

9. You are afflicted with a fatal illness from my biting satire
An illness in you from stupidity ever-flowing

10. Your shoes have slipped and you have fallen headlong
As one of little propriety fell in his swooning

11. So your origin is condemned and your branch disgraced
Your present is vile while your glory is faded

12. Your belly is filled but your guest is hungry
Your debauchery flourishes but your religion is diminished

13. Your wealth is hoarded while your honor is lost
Your slander flourishes but praise of you is folded

14. If called to a party, you shy away cautiously
But are led by the blind while praise of you is folded

15. If you were alive when called you'd shy away cautiously
Satire hurts the living and the sound person

16. You sought from the deceiver a gift and promotion
So you drowned in an ocean of misguidance and passion

17. A man who came to a worldly or religious matter has lost
Both this world and the next

18. Who gathered inward and outward wickedness
To inward and outward wickedness of origin?

19. And was prevented from the sea of learning, so he recoiled
And was expelled from the path of devotion, and was passionate

20. And was lax in piety until the signs appeared in him
Of disbelief in loyalty. Shun him!

21. You are not, though they reckon you an equivalent
For faded weed is not like luxuriant herbage

22. A man, his blindness does not deceive
Is not to be blamed for lies he does voice

23. He sees the master in his coarse mantle
With the lion in his den, though unequal