1. What in the life of a

    person is dearer than a book?

  2. It polishes the mind and guides

    you to the path of what is right.

  3. And consoles you when

    one day you are depressed,

  4. or dispels your sorrow

    with sweet, amusing tales.

  5. It is more useful in

    solitude than companions' idle chatter.

  6. If only I had spent in

    its company all my youth!

  7. Ah, I have indeed squandered my life

    amid frivolity and drinking,

  8. among a slender beauty and a dark-eyed

    girl, a tender maiden and a maiden with budding breasts;

  9. and in shunning a life of

    earnestness, amid youthful dalliance.

  10. And my watcher recorded my words

    and my deeds in my book.

  11. What is my fate after I am gathered for judgment?

    I do not know.

  12. If, in this life and at the gathering,

    my book is in my right hand,

  13. oh, my good fortune! For I have won

    in my worldly life and my faith.

  14. In my life I strike at doubt

    with the authority of certainty.

  15. And when the herald of

    resurrection calls, 'O people of the right hand!'

  16. I shall say, 'Here! Read

    this account of mine and my debts.

  17. In it is what I sent ahead in

    my worldly life: deeds of worth.'

  18. Then he calls, 'Admit him

    into shade, beside springs.'

  19. If only I had sent ahead what would

    help me, or shield me from

  20. the bewilderment of the gathering, and divorced

    my doubts and my conjectures.

  21. Ah, if my book should come

    in my left hand!

  22. What would happen? And yet—

    I—what is the matter with me?

  23. As for me, if the world closes in on me

    and worry crushes my patience,

  24. I care nothing for worry, so long

    as my book is at my command.

  25. In it is what keeps those

    like me from verse and prose.

  26. And it is enough for me that I

    live through it in every age.

  27. O life of the soul, do not

    move even a handspan away from it.

  28. My life without a book

    is not worth a quarter of zero.

  29. It is my teacher, who

    taught me to sing through my verse.

  30. It freed me from every fetter

    that shackled my deeds and my thought.

  31. So today I have become like a

    bird, in private and in public.

  32. I care nothing for clouds and

    thunder, nor the lightning flashing by.

  33. I am free in my song

    and my singing;

  34. and in my singing alone lies

    my solace.

Sol 6.1