1. My reproach is better than your reproach, if only you knew
For I have gone against what I was used to all my life

2. I was accustomed never to reproach a sinner
Even if I were a desert and he the father of deserts

3. Because I'm used to reproach, either to please
Or to avenge, which is ugly in the noble

4. As for pleasing, it is the worst humiliation
And as for avenging, it is like taking revenge

5. So avenging equals the sin, and what
I blame for committing it, how can I allow it

6. But my words are not this, nor that
It's not reproach, but ways of remembrance

7. Words called reproach, like an old woman
Called barren, yet more fertile than a virgin

8. And if you detect in it some reproach, I
Call it lament for the committer of sin

9. For a committer, whom reason does not hate
Contradicted by sound natural instinct

10. It is none but you, or rather, it is not but you
Why not, when you have gone too far in self-conceit and pride

11. Restrain yourself, some of your arrogance is enough
For tall trees are feared to break from it

12. And it does not benefit trees to have long trunks
If not matched by deep roots