1. O master with praiseworthy traits
Praise escalated into earthenware

2. Hearken, my ransom, to my tale
Obligingly, and reduce the excuses

3. It is a tale whose locks were torn
Stripping poetry, even stripping its motifs

4. I do not allow its discourse
Except by compulsion of necessity

5. I ignorantly ruined myself
In Sa’d’s abode of pride

6. And erred therein an error
That I regretted with my faculty and powers

7. I smote the back with its donation
With my spine, the piercer of the piercer

8. And I thought explaining my affliction
In it would end in conciseness

9. I did not know that in it
I was like incense in a thousand thistles

10. When I mentioned its defects
It recoiled after spreading

11. I decided to leave it
Even if it were the abode of settlement

12. But I shook out my collar
In it, deluded

13. And if construction does not stand
Except by the open-handed

14. I destroyed in it everything
Contained in my right or left

15. And enough evil that I
Sold the Muwatta and al-Bukhari

16. And dependent on your bounty
For I stood my donkey in it

17. And perhaps the donkey would slip
While he was up to mischief