1. How long when I am absent is my safety hoped for,
When misfortunes have beset me and arisen?

2. And I have been generally given a turban to wear,
Of coarse fabric - decrepitude is marked upon my turban.

3. And I used to see for myself in youth a sign,
So I have become, though I deny, my sign.

4. It is only a returning after an absence
To the uttermost absence, then the arising of my end.

5. It is as if I see myself in regret and remorse
Cut to pieces when my remorse does not avail me.

6. The soul's wish from what treads a man down in passion
When the soul circles about them and is inflamed.

7. And he whom his soul treads down in need has indeed
His soul done evil to him and pained him.

8. But, by Him to whom my soul belongs, if I had obeyed it
I would have turned back my rebuke to it and blamed it.

9. So God curse a soul that has trodden me down in passion
Grieving, and had I corrected it, it would have become upright.

10. And God curse a day, what day of exceeding vileness!
And more vile than it hereafter the day of my standing again.

11. And God curse my people when they encompassed me with a pit
And they seek my glory through my abasement.

12. And God curse a world that still turns me back
From its vanities, in ignorance after my uprightness!

13. And God curse the comrades of frivolities! If they were characterized
By them, the pleasure of life would have lasted with them and continued.

14. And God curse an eye that was certain that gardens
And fire - a true, veracious certainty - then slept!