1. The ignorant cut his time short with amorous verse
Indeed, the ignorant are oblivious to beauty

2. I do not incline towards the words of the censurer
My vigil to refine knowledge is more delightful to me

3. Than joining a singing girl or a sweet embrace
If you have come to me with any shortcoming

4. It is perfection, and that is due to my discretion
My desire for the precious with cheap payment

5. And my swaying in rapture to solve a riddle
In the mind is more eloquent than a cupbearer's draft

6. The poison of ignorance is gone from its antidote
Which is the sciences by the light of its effulgence

7. I composed it in poetry befitting its merit
And the scratching of my pen on its pages

8. Is more luscious than the lute and lovers
So rise to attain knowledge and fulfill it

9. With the noblest state and most graceful manner
I have been restrained from depravity by its hands

10. And more delightful than a maiden's gentle knock
My knock to cast the sand off my pages

11. My ambition rises high above glories
To attain my goal and near my loved ones

12. And I am one whose resolve is like a sharpened sword
O you who exaggerates my position to me

13. What a gap between a lowly and a sublime!
I have become renowned by its attributes

14. I do not fear missing it
O you deficient in striving for your reputation

15. Have you refused to stay up nights and lose sleep
Then seek after that to catch up to me?