Sol 5.6

  1. A man's increase in worldly wealth is but a loss,

    and profit not alloyed with pure goodness is ruin.

  2. Every share of fortune that cannot endure

    means, in truth, deprivation.

  3. O diligent restorer of the ruin wrought by time—

    by God, can what time has ruined ever be rebuilt?

  4. O you so eager to amass riches,

    have you forgotten that wealth's delights are sorrows?

  5. Turn your heart from this world and its adornment:

    its seeming purity is turbid, and its fellowship estrangement.

  6. Lend your ear to proverbs I shall set forth distinctly,

    as rubies and coral are set apart.

  7. Do good to people and you will enslave their hearts;

    how often kindness has enslaved humankind.

  8. If a wrongdoer wrongs you, let your response,

    when his foot slips, be pardon and forgiveness.

  9. Throughout all time, be a helper to the hopeful

    who seeks your bounty—for the noble are helpers.

  10. Grasp with both hands the cord of faith, holding fast,

    for it is the pillar when all your pillars betray you.

  11. Whoever fears God will be praised in his final outcomes,

    and He will spare him the evil of the mighty and the lowly.

  12. Whoever seeks another's aid instead of God's in some pursuit—

    his helpers will prove helplessness and abandonment.

  13. Whoever habitually withholds goodness will truly have

    neither brothers nor intimate friends.

  14. Whoever gives wealth freely wins all people over;

    toward him they incline, for wealth sorely tempts mankind.

  15. Whoever lives peaceably with people is safe from their snares

    and lives delighted, serene of eye.

  16. Whoever makes reason a ruler over himself will become rightly guided,

    while greed will hold no dominion over his soul.

  17. Whoever, through sheer ignorance, turns his gaze toward desire

    will one day close his eyes to truth and stand disgraced.

  18. Whoever associates with people meets hardship from them,

    for their ingrained nature is oppression and aggression.

  19. Whoever searches closely among brothers will find them few:

    most brothers of this age are traitors.

  20. Whoever studies the vicissitudes of time will find arising for him

    a proof of time's true nature.

  21. Whoever sows evil will reap in its aftermath

    regret—for every harvest has its appointed season.

  22. Whoever sleeps trustingly among the wicked sleeps while

    inside his shirt are a viper and a serpent.

  23. Be radiant of countenance; the noble person's aspiration

    is a page whose heading is cheerfulness.

  24. Keep gentleness as your companion in every affair:

    a companion of gentleness never regrets it, nor does anyone condemn him.

  25. Do not be deceived by a stroke of fortune brought by recklessness:

    recklessness destroys, while a person's gentleness builds.

  26. Do good whenever means and power permit,

    for no person's means endure forever.

  27. The garden is adorned with blossoms—seize the hour;

    the noble are adorned by lineage and beneficence.

  28. Guard the inviolable honor of your face; do not tear its veils,

    for every noble person guards another's honor.

  29. When you meet an enemy, always meet him

    with a face fresh in cheerfulness and radiance.

  30. Cast off indolence while seeking good deeds,

    for the indolent never prospers through good.

  31. A man stripped of piety and wisdom has no shade,

    even if leaves and branches cast shade upon him.

  32. People support the man whom fortune befriends,

    and they turn against him when fortune turns hostile.

  33. Without abundant wealth, eloquent Saḥbān becomes tongue-tied Bāqil;

    amid abundant wealth, Bāqil becomes Saḥbān.

  34. Do not entrust a secret to a slanderer who will divulge it:

    no wolf ever tended sheep in the wilderness.

  35. Do not suppose that people share one nature; they possess

    dispositions beyond your counting and hidden traits.

  36. Not every water is the famed spring Ṣadāʾ to a thirsty visitor;

    indeed, not every plant is sweet Saʿdān.

  37. Do not mar with delay the face of a favor freely given:

    kindness is disfigured by delay and procrastination.

  38. Consult none but an able, resolute, vigilant man

    whose private and public selves are alike.

  39. Strategy has its horsemen who, when they charge into it,

    excel just as the battlefield has its horsemen.

  40. Affairs have appointed times, predetermined,

    and every matter has a limit and a measure.

  41. Do not rush headlong into the matter you seek,

    for unripe dates are not praised before they mature.

  42. Enough of life is whatever truly meets one's need;

    in that, the free-born find contentment and sufficiency.

  43. The contented man is pleased with his livelihood,

    while the greedy man, even when enriched, is angry.

  44. A young man's reason suffices as a friend to keep him company

    when brothers and intimate companions shun him.

  45. Wisdom and piety are two nurslings of the same milk;

    wealth and tyranny are two dwellers in a single homeland.

  46. When a homeland rejects a noble man, there remain for him

    beyond it, throughout time, other homelands.

  47. No devourer of injustice could savor it, if only he listened;

    how can a taste be sweet when it is grievous?

  48. O learned man whose conduct wins approval,

    rejoice: without water, you are fully quenched.

  49. O brother of ignorance, you have entered surging depths,

    yet amid them—make no mistake—you are thirsty.

  50. Never suppose that happiness lasts forever:

    whomever one age delights, other ages will grieve.

  51. O you strutting amid lush youth, drunk

    from its cup—has a drunkard ever attained right guidance?

  52. Do not be beguiled by luxuriant, flourishing, dewy youth:

    how many young men departed before their hair turned gray.

  53. O gray-haired man, had you counseled yourself sincerely,

    one like you would not persist in excess.

  54. Grant that youth's decay may excuse its possessor—

    what excuse has a graybeard whom Satan leads astray?

  55. Every sin God may forgive,

    if sincerity and faith accompany the sinner.

  56. Every fracture God may mend,

    but a broken pillar of faith admits no mending.

  57. If a friend you once cherished treats you coldly,

    seek another: all people may become brothers.

  58. If the homelands where you grew up reject you,

    depart—for every land of God may be a homeland.

  59. Truth and righteousness in this world are deemed Musaylima;

    while a foolish naïf amid prosperity is deemed Luqman.

  60. The shrewdest man is he whose purse contains even a small coin,

    not merely one for whom a vast field of virtue is laid out.

  61. People are lofty Mount Shamām wherever ease prevails,

    but wherever wealth inclines, they become rancorous.

  62. We once believed that beneficence itself was an honor;

    today, whoever merely does not harm people is called benevolent.

  63. Take these circulating, polished proverbs:

    within them is clarification for whoever seeks clarity.

  64. What could diminish their beauty, when natural genius and poetic craft fashioned them—

    if Ḥassān, the champion of poetry, should utter them?

Sol 5.6