1. Oh how I wish to be advised before death comes
And a house of ruin is built for my body

2. Oh how I wish to be advised, how many a beloved
Whose affection was inaccessible to reunion I endured

3. Oh how I wish to be advised, my efforts are not for attainment
Nor for standing at that which was destined I missed

4. So I was destroyed by what destroyed all people
The turns of fate, greed, infatuation, and would that I had

5. Oh how many a sly enemy bearing
Grudges’ clouds I knew and chased away

6. So he became a friend after he had been hostile
Far from pleased with me, but then reconciled and I reconciled

7. And I answered the plan of profitable gain
And the plan of devastating loss I refused

8. With piety’s provision held ahead like a companion
My heart pleasantly provisioned itself and I provisioned

9. So I met Him in an abode prepared for me
An honorable lodging I do not aim for, and I lodged

10. And from the wonders of days the hatred of comrades
Bent on affliction when I surpass them I experienced

11. To them belongs a womb-world they know
When they exhaust it with estrangement I give life

12. They bar me from gratitude and my way is shunned
Shortly after proximity like a house is shunned

13. So that is the way of righteousness from me and their way
When they kill my blessings with disbelief I give life

14. My exceeding them angers them and their deficiency
As though I distributed the lots and favored

15. And how many firm coiling afflictions in their throats
I undid and relieved

16. I knew my time, its misery and comfort
And I faced the hated misfortunes and endured

17. And a favorable fate whose bliss I possessed
And I was given the sweetness of livelihood and I gave

18. And another that grieves me, for its pain I was patient
And how many agonies beneath composure I tasted

19. And an adversary whose foolish talk is abundant
I filled for him contention’s bucket and sufficed

20. I match the fabrications of the hostile what they muddled with it
For the remains, and if they delude me with evil I deluded

21. And I follow the lantern of certainty, so if
Doubt in something uncertain appears, I refrain

22. And the desolation of perpetuity I covered its expanses
With scintillating mirages, and the desolation I laid bare

23. I preoccupied the soul’s worries with a journey
And I became above it in my equipment by morning and evening

24. And a spring whose surroundings I knocked with a vessel
Like oil flows down it

25. And an outlook post like a spear I climbed
As though for the saddle seats of stars I whispered

26. And a wish I did not forbid my soul its intent
I attained and another thereafter I wished

27. And a vicious war whose burden weighs down the land
And death glints on the edges of its spears

28. I witnessed with patience whose troops do not retreat
So I tasted the goblets of doom and I served them

29. And a guest the night tossed me in its darkness
So I greeted him ere my provision and greeted

30. And he stayed the eve of a night whose evil vanished
And I stood and fed praise and sated

31. And blessings that straiten the soul when I recount them
I thanked the Lord of the lands and it sufficed

32. And a malady from the enemies crept its poisons
And I cured the calm of evil with the sword and healed

33. And a resolve like the bending of the sword for me and my friend
That an intimation since I concealed did not disclose

34. And wine like the color of amber smiling in its cup
I began at dawn honorably drinking and left

35. And a fair one who gives the eye beauty and radiance
I busied with her the prime of youth and spent

36. I ascended to her and the night shone its star
And I met a full moon in the dimness when I met

37. And I was a man of the amorousness that you see
For I have attained the climax so I climbed beyond

38. And I said oh soul after grey hair
Is there warning, what then is my excuse if I persist?

39. And my eye saw death brandishing
My grey hair’s swords above my head and I looked

40. So I relinquished the reign of amorousness to its people
And I turned from the matter of the wanton and withdrew

41. Without remembrance I would not have known
I obeyed my own lusts after being disobedient

42. And they said grey hair tilts one close to destruction
I said do you see me brought near and close?

43. My heart changed not as my temples changed
I removed white marked by reverence and maintained

44. For long I tipped my cup in youth
So I dismantled my cup after I emptied