Sol 5.6

  1. Praise belongs to God, and thanks are His;

    by God, He is worthy of praise and thanks.

  2. O you there—the wolf whom I have chosen

    as my deputy to oversee my affairs,

  3. I commend the sheep to your ill treatment—for

    must Abū Jaʿdah be urged to evil?

  4. Go at them with a lion’s stride, or

    charge upon them in an onslaught of “righteousness.”

  5. Leave no trace of them in the Nile,

    save scraps of wool and droppings.

  6. Keep watch over the sikbāj: whoever smells it,

    or merely passes beside the cooking pot,

  7. seize him by the beard, and beware

    of any scheme concerning it that may be afoot.

  8. I want you to tally every one of their batches,

    and all the wool upon them is yours.

  9. Use them to secure me a whole lifetime’s livelihood,

    laying by reserves in it, as you know how.

  10. But beware, when you render them in full tomorrow,

    lest the measure fall short of the appraisal,

  11. until, when I come to you, you hand them over

    with that tally, straight into my lap.

  12. Among the people I charge you with this

    covenant I have bound in secret and in public.

  13. How could I not charge you thus, when

    among them I have been afflicted by the Sons of the Clitoris?

  14. The injustice of my age has forced me

    into a livelihood that shames a free man.

  15. Time itself has come down with diarrhea,

    and we are drowning in Time’s shit.

Sol 5.6