Sol 5.6

  1. Meeting you is protection against the reversals of time;

    how could fate’s vicissitudes ever reach one under your protection?

  2. Those who sought to attain your utmost reach fell behind,

    far short of a goal upon which the race itself is staked.

  3. You pressed forward with the boldness of one confident in his might;

    they recoiled—for the ignoble man is a coward.

  4. You discerned the path to glory when, within it,

    reason stood bewildered and minds had strayed.

  5. You traded with them, profited, and won the prices of high glory;

    indeed, noble deeds are the prices paid for high glory.

  6. You made a cheerful countenance the emblem of generosity,

    just as every page has a heading.

  7. They said, when they glimpsed you high above their gaze:

    “Young men cannot differ by so vast a measure!”

  8. You spring from a people who tamed calamities and grappled with the—

    world; they yielded to Time, then made it yield.

  9. Their sons took their forefathers as their models,

    until ancestral roots and branches resembled one another.

  10. You set my circumstances aright and tamed their hardships,

    though people remain people, and time remains time.

  11. You guaranteed me success from the moment you promised me;

    such is a noble man’s promise—a guarantee.

  12. You spared me recourse to an ignoble man with influence;

    for an ignoble man, when influential, vaunts every favor.

  13. You showed my fortune where to set down its load;

    there it made its camel kneel for me, and deprivation moved away.

  14. Wherever the seeker of favor comes, his reward is

    a radiant face and a palm pouring bounty like rain,

  15. with virtues molded in the very form of right guidance—

    bright-faced, stainless, and resplendent.

  16. Here is a fresh request you have fulfilled; behind it

    another, now mature, stands on the verge of fulfillment.

  17. Within it the gleams of noble deeds and praise are paired,

    as an astral conjunction unites auspicious stars.

  18. Join the forebears to their descendants: they are but the—

    spirits by which bodies stand.

  19. Keep your bounty far above any partner who claims

    a share in it, though he has no proof.

  20. If anyone besides you brings forth beneficence, it is only because

    through the beauty of your deed, benevolence was made fruitful.

  21. Or if a bucketful is drawn from his generosity, it is only—

    from you that the bucket-thongs and long well-ropes came.

Sol 5.6