1. You gave us, O youth, from lean cattle,
And camels, the most generous and first,

2. The most spacious in comfort and dew,
And the highest in peak and sublime.

3. An old woman whose age has led her
To the abode of ruin where she resides.

4. I thought the shepherd had watered her to facilitate her movement,
And she was more barren than a bull of agriculture

5. That in his hunger stumbled upon an ear of grain.
And more ascetic than a carcass that the sun did not spare a joint connecting joint.

6. And more scabbed than a she-camel whose son bought it
If she crossed a sacred place in early morning.

7. If she were to eat camphor with anemones
And knead together musk and jasmine,

8. God would not have made her soul fragrant
Nor extracted from her bones the marrow.

9. I placed my right hand on her back
And found her shoulder blades to be fibrous.

10. I thrust my left hand to her tail
And found her buttocks spindle-like.

11. After this, I turned over her flank
And found her hip bone to resemble a sickle.

12. So I said, “Shall I sell her, for neither drink
Nor food do I expect or hope near her?”

13. “Shall I roast and cook of her meat
And enjoy that more than gnawing bones?”

14. “Shall I make from her hide a vessel
And with her vessel make vessels filthy?”

15. “If she passes by a gathering on command
Amazingly she may utter a hymn or chant”

16. “They would see behind her a driver prodding her
And though she runs, still run.”

17. “You had commanded that she be stout
With flesh and fat now fully formed.”

18. “But her spirit exceeded its course,
And never did I reckon it would so act.”

19. So he who betrayed her trust
Rips from his mother’s breast her intestines.

20. “Had I not your rank, I would have given him
Split hooves and cloven him with a knife.”

21. “Had I not been shy of you, I would have bloodied her
And hung bells around her neck.”

22. “She has come that you may see her state.
And learn that I with her am afflicted.”

23. “I asked you for meat for our children.
Yet with it you have added to me a weakling.”

24. “So take her while you are kind to us
And never have you ceased being gracious and bountiful.”