1. Alas! Many are those whose time is up
Yet they are desirous and little wary

2. When he sways his shoulders whilst walking
You recognise senility in his shoulders

3. He hopes for more life than he has left
And with each day he grows more evil

4. Morn and eve he thinks himself
Noble in his pursuits, risky in his endeavours

5. He commands awe and obedience
Whenever he issues a command

6. He is lively and cheerful, for his day
Keeps him busy, if he but knew

7. He counts illusions and builds palaces
Forgetting mortality and fate

8. Forgetting generations and the strokes of death
Forgetting sorrows and forgetting others

9. Forgetting months which change all matters
For good or for evil

10. Greed makes him drink the cup of death
And carries him atop the back of treachery

11. How many kings we knew
Who passed away while we remained

12. Are you not surprised at the people of graves
As if they had never been mortals

13. O brother, you neglected matters
In which you had little insight

14. How long will you be heedless
As if senility does not increase your blindness

15. You hope for a long life on earth
While your life grows ever shorter

16. I see you do not weary of amassing belongings
Due to the proximity of travel and distance of the journey

17. You should contemplate what your fate will be
And reflect on it

18. You should take the abode of illusions lightly
And prepare for one of the two grave abodes

19. That home is the abode of woes and sorrows
The abode of mortality and treachery

20. Had you gained it in its entirety
You would die before crossing its threshold

21. By my life, generations before us
Tread its path, providing lessons

22. Oh, would that I knew, after grey hair
What is left but death still awaited

23. It is as if you are in a pit
With earth and shovel over you

24. Never forget the day you will be laid
Upon your deathbed above the heads of mankind

25. And send ahead for that day
Since man only has what he puts forth, nothing held back

26. He who has ample wealth
Is respected, while the poor man is scorned

27. And he who is fooled by fate
I have knowledge of fate

28. You see fate give us examples
And show us the turns of fate

29. So do not feel safe from its stumbling
For many a noble man has stumbled over it

30. It turns on a man until you see
Him drinking bitterness after sweetness

31. Until you see him slow of pace
Sluggish to get up, bleary-eyed

32. O you who hopes for a long life
While a long life does you harm

33. When you are old and youth has gone
There is no good in living after old age