يا لِلرِجال لِقَوم قَد مِللتُهُمُ

أَرى جوارهُم إِحدى البليّاتِ

O men, I have wearied of a people

Oh men, hear my plea regarding a people of whom I have grown weary,

Whose neighborhood I see as one of life's calamities,

I deem living in their midst to be one of life's great calamities.

ذِئب رَضيع وَخَنزير تعارضها

عَقارِب وُجِنَت وَجنا بِحَيّات

A suckling wolf-cub along with a contending swine,

A suckling wolf, and a swine that stands in opposition,

Scorpions, demons, and snakes lively with evil.

Scorpions kneaded into a mass with vipers.

ما ظَنُّكُم بأناس خَيرُ كسبهم

مُصرّحُ السُحت سَمَّوه الأَمانات

What do you think of people whose best livelihood

What is your opinion of people whose best earning

Is revealing defects - they called them trusts?

Is blatant illicit gain which they have named "trusts"?

قَد كُنتُ أَحسبُني رأساً فَقَد جَعلت

أَذنابهم بالولاياتِ

Once I thought myself a head but they made me

I used to consider myself a head, yet circumstances have placed

Their tails in office.

Their tails in the seats of power.

وَالحَمدُ لِلَّهِ كَم في الدَهر مِن عَجَب

وَمِن تصرّف أَحوال وَحالات

Thanks be to God - how many wonders time brings

Praise be to God, how much wonder lies in the turning of time,

And how affairs and states shift and change!

And in the shifting of conditions and states.

بَينا تَرى المَرء في عَيطاءَ مشرفَةٍ

إِذ زالَ عَنها إِلى دَحض وَمومات

While you see a man on a lofty, splendid dune,

Just as you see a man upon a lofty, overlooking peak,

Suddenly he's gone from it, to a ditch and ruin.

He slips from it into a treacherous slide and a barren wasteland.

لا تَنظُرَنَّ إِلى عَقلٍ وَلا أَدَبِ

إِنَّ الجدود قَريناتُ الحَماقاتِ

Look neither at a mind nor manners -

Do not look for intellect, nor for culture,

Ancestors are twins to foolish acts.

For good fortunes are the intimate companions of folly.