1. May God give you life, revive knowledge and literature,
If you spread knowledge, nobility will spread among you,

2. You have no life except through a university,
That would be a mother to students of excellence and dignity,

3. It builds men and builds every towering
Edifice of glories and builds might and conquest,

4. Lay hearts as a foundation - I do not tell you -
Lay riches, for I belittle gold,

5. And build with your livers a wall for it and leave
The enemy's talk, for I know the reason,

6. Do not despair if you read what he makes palatable,
That dean throws at you in anger,

7. And watch the day when its harvests will not avail,
For every living soul will be recompensed for what it earned,

8. He built on falsehood lofty towers,
So build on truth a tower piercing the flames,

9. And answer him with a deed that cannot be undermined
By the words of the nullifier wherever he spoke or orated.

10. Do not sleep, for they will never sleep,
And seek them, but make seeking beautiful,

11. Did the news of the wretched people come to you,
Who trod and left in the land from their mention wonders?

12. In Carthage the building stones revelled, so the ships anchored
In it and their ropes swayed,

13. And war is blazing and the people are at war,
The drink of death has poured over them bushes,

14. They spilt it and their unveiled concubines,
If only their eyelids had been a cause for it,

15. There the braids dispensed with what they stinted
As allurement, so they did what was obligatory,

16. They cut off locks of hair, launched ships
And salvaged a homeland and regained vigour,

17. They saw their adornment upon the homelands and rejoiced
And did not grieve over the jewellery that was gone,

18. And that increased their beauty while they were chaste,
Adorned over those who went to war or rode.

19. And Barthran who the fathers spun for him
A garment of pride, time and eras wore out,

20. He stood captive for a while, then was told:
"Does it not pain you to ransom glory and merit?"

21. Say: You are free to choose, so he said to them:
"We are men who spurn money and youth."

22. Take the quintals in sifted bran
That your treasurer will tire counting them.

23. They said: "You have judged with what you cannot
Carry, we almost see what you said as jest."

24. So he said: "By God, no living woman is
Flirtatious about seeing in my ransom difficulty."

25. "If they tasked her with selling her spindle
She would prefer me, and her strength would grow keen."

26. This is the lasting trace, so do not stop
At words when you attempt a structure,

27. And I almost strike for you in yourselves and in Egypt
An example, in truth or lies,

28. I heard that a man was befriended
By a dog, and they lived in loyalty and companionship,

29. One day, while hunger was plundering him
Mercilessly, leaving only skin and nerves,

30. He saw him wasting away in weakness and spending
His groaning in anguish,

31. Crying over him while in his right hand were loaves
That if a hungry man from a mile away sensed he would leap,

32. Some people said, as they pitied the one in pain
Crying while the one in pain faces harm:

33. "What is wrong with this dog?" Hunger snatches him
From me andsinks its fangs into him rapaciously."

34. They said, as they saw the fresh loaves:
"This is the cure, have you treated him with it?" But he refused.

35. He answered them: "The motives of stinginess have struck
Between the two friends, from the excess sorrow, veils."

36. "For that reason our affection did not reach
The point that I give him food while I grieve today."

37. "These are my tears on my cheeks flowing
In sorrow, and this is my heart aflame,

38. I swear by God, if our affection was like
The dog's companion - the matter would change."

39. "I seek refuge for you from being like him, so we see
From you crying and do not find for you a way."

40. "If you lend God in your homelands, for you is
The reward of the struggler. Good tidings to whoever volunteered."