1. Take the path of the bankrupt and their homes
You have wearied my hearing with your doubts, O passion

2. And with the turning from one desire to another afire
And with preventing me from the reproach of them all

3. There is no difference between one in a gown or veil
And my pocket is empty, as you have described it, bare

4. So be patient, for there is no shame in patience
How many a bankrupt has spent the night better off than a groom

5. With his compliant right hand behind the curtain
Choosing his bride, whether previously married or a virgin

6. Without any dowry or demand from him
Unlike what the prosperous encounter

7. Embracing in imagination every unseen damsel
Veiled from sights and hearings

8. And imagination brings close all who are distant
Judging by the insistence of estrangement

9. You can do without discomfort or
Fear of sins and burdens

10. You can do without fear of a dirham
That you give to a prostitute or dinar

11. By God, she is a strange slave girl
And I say this definitively without doubt

12. Honored with a husband who does not separate from her
Whether settled or traveling among trips

13. Alas! She does not disobey him in anything or
Divulge to him any secrets

14. She is a cat who never gets angry or complains or
Lies or runs off to a neighbor's house

15. She comes when called, stays when invited, leaves when she finishes
What is sought from her in cycles

16. Yet no one accepts her as a wife
And if you ask, he denies with rejection

17. And if you are patient, though patience does not suit you
In desire, O most debauched of the debauched

18. You will be rewarded as the patient are rewarded
Excellent is the reward, the reward of the abode of the Hereafter

19. So he answered me: say to me - what can I do
When you know best my careless ways?

20. If a lanky youth with a swinging gait passes before me
With a rear not firmly in place

21. It sways like quicksilver, shimmering, in
Movements - far from arrogance or haughtiness

22. As if it were quicksilver covered from behind with a loincloth
By God, I wish eloquence upon his description were mine

23. Or a sorceress in her graceful secret movements
From beneath the veil, melting with a glance

24. And insofar as my eyes had been fruitful
So had my pocket been in privation

25. Tell me - may you live well - what is my strategy
When all know me to be a shameless flirt?

26. From it the aid of fate has withdrawn