1. I stay awake, death's memory deprives me of sleep
And I say to my tears, "Delight me!" So delight me!

2. O he who dies, yet his death does not grieve him,
And he who dies - how little he frets and mourns!

3. You seek to be saved from misfortunes playing it safe,
Yet you and mishaps are yoked together.

4. O you, the soul that breathes through a body
Held hostage between night and day.

5. Rarely do they differ without separating
The soul from the body.

6. Life is sweetest when need is little,
Not sweet to those heavily burdened.

7. Nothing remains of the past but fancy,
As though he who died yesterday did not exist.

8. Man's life lies only in the present moment,
That's why I ask the learned about time.

9. How clearly it shows the moral to the wise
Through pondering, experience and wit!

10. Don't you see how the world is fickle?
Why are you fooled by its softness and luxury?

11. I wonder, wonder till wonder amazes me -
People oblivious while death follows its laws!

12. His clothes are white raiment, pleasing to die in
Unointed, unembalmed.

13. I left him there, after his funeral, downcast
In a nearby house, far from his homeland.

14. He cannot decrease the ugliness of his situation
Nor increase its beauty.

15. Thanks be to God! I see no restful dwelling
That sways with the rocking of the dead.

16. What's wrong with people whose minds see clearly,
Yet they buy illusion paying a price?

17. The world will pull me with its strength
To death, though I resist its rope.

18. What day for him who met his end
Clearly shows the image of loss?

19. Some people belong to this world; in debt to it
They pasture in the meadows of sin and strife.

20. Like cattle fattening up, seeking fat -
If only their fatness could save them!