1. O you who hold authority over us
Have you forgotten our loyalty and affection?

2. Lower your army and sleep contented
Seek your prey and roam the lands

3. And when a neck ornamented with pearls
Eludes you amid those hills, hunt down the slaves

4. We and the doves are alike
Our necks have never lacked necklaces

5. Think not we disobey, but rather
Guide us if we stray from the right path

6. Do not punish a nation for one slain
Though the sun itself has set when slain

7. Our ignorant came with a matter and you
Met his weakness with hardness and force

8. Show mercy in killing, if you disdain pardon
Seeking retaliation, or plotting evil

9. Show mercy in killing, if you disdain pardon
Souls you hurt, or the inanimate

10. Would that I knew, is this the court of equity
Returned, or Nero's era come again?

11. How can the strong gloat over the weak
Who has surrendered leadership to him?

12. It is mutilation that reveals anger
And we are not equals to your rage

13. Honor us in our land wherever you are
Only the steed honors the steed

14. Twenty arguments after five
Have taught us to be still no matter what

15. The Nile nation is too great to be hostile
To one who attacked her, too noble to attack

16. In her is only words, and only
Regret after regret that keeps building

17. O public prosecutor, stop.
With some of this you have achieved your purpose

18. We guaranteed you justice in Egypt
And guaranteed your son success

19. So when you sit in judgment, remember
Egypt's covenant, and you will cheer the heart

20. Neither has the Nile flowed in your valleys, O Egypt
Nor has the serpent roamed where it roamed

21. You grow that growth, O Egypt
So it becomes thorns you pluck out

22. You groom a vocal beast that stands
At dusk, wounding hearts and livers

23. Woe to you, O city of justice, woe to you
Who prevailed in the heedlessness of time and fenced

24. You are our torturer, so do not forget
We have worn black garments by your hand