Sol 5.6

  1. This age has muttered a saying,

    and every one of us hopes for its meaning to be made clear.

  2. The elders have told us of a matter,

    though no informant claimed to have witnessed it firsthand.

  3. How many a being is corrupt for some cause,

    while its Lord is the corrupter of its very being.

  4. Why are we sunk in the misery of life,

    when all we seek is its ease?

  5. Your world is a dwelling—we have agreed,

    within it, upon precious little piety.

  6. As though it were a beguiling singing-girl,

    never known at all for chastity.

  7. Whoever fails to win her parades asceticism before you;

    yet who can hold an ass back from its ṣilliyān fodder?

  8. That young man did not himself betray—but

    he urged another toward betrayal.

Sol 5.6