Sol 6.1

  1. Who is there for me if I find no helper in you?

    Lend me your ear for a while, so I may speak plainly.

  2. It is deliverance enough for me to confide to you what

    I endure; enough for you that I am trustworthy.

  3. What patience has one whose breast is filled with flame,

    and whose limbs flow with sorrow and longing?

  4. My grief is like an innocent man's grief over strength

    with which I never discharged debts to the homeland.

  5. I exhausted it in worry, though I had been, against

    love's intoxication in youth, jealously protective of it.

  6. How greatly I needed it when

    I reached maturity—and how much needier my nation and the faith were!

  7. Had I mustered it on the day of battle,

    I would have conquered towering strongholds and fortresses.

  8. Without feeling, I would have aspired to no good,

    nor filled east and west with lamentation.

  9. I have indeed counted those beset by anguish, and found

    none in anguish but the skilled man in prison.

  10. I strive; the shackles pull me back, and I recoil,

    surrendering to misfortunes, held hostage.

  11. I seek wealth, but I seek only that

    with which I may heal the suffering poor man.

  12. Prudence is simply to help with my dirham

    at times, and benefit others with verse at others.

  13. It is misery enough for me that I know

    my worth, and find the times treacherous.

  14. How many a temptation, but for my open adherence to right guidance,

    would have made me rich amid it, a hypocrite led astray!

  15. And some events harm those of understanding,

    and honor the fickle fool.

  16. I surely prefer, over sweet but forbidden water,

    prolonged thirst, molten metal, and pus.

  17. One part of me has indeed wronged another, so I do not

    invoke the courts or appeal to the law.

  18. And in generosity I went beyond what its seeker intended,

    until they called me the mad poet.

  19. The worthless man grew rich on the best of what I sell;

    why did they not call me the cheated merchant?

  20. I have indeed shunned the cities, renouncing the world,

    and taken to the open country, seeking solitude and stillness.

  21. I accept nothing but nature for solace,

    and remembrance as my cup, and poetry as my companion.

  22. What justice is there in one who forgets his own calamity

    utterly, yet remembers what befell China?

  23. I have nothing but the pen I have readied,

    my truest arrow and my sharpened spear:

  24. an arbiter, beloved even when it wrongs men,

    a fate among them, honoring and humbling.

  25. O nurturer of heroes who give their lives for the homeland,

    have mercy on its exalted poets.

  26. They are soldiers, though they have borne no steel; rather,

    they are filled with conviction solid as mountains.

  27. And by what authority does he vaunt himself above mankind,

    who does not extend a right hand to the captive?

  28. After my experience, should I soothe with hopes

    my soul, and fill it with visions and conjectures?

  29. What use is study at twenty, if

    I have not grown rich before reaching fifty?

  30. For your approval today I have lost

    health, youth, and years.

  31. If you wish, I shall benefit from learning; and if you wish,

    misery will be the companion of what I have learned.

  32. Oh, the shame of lineage and ancestral honor, if

    I find in myself no guarantor for me before you!

  33. And surely you are the most receptive of those I have called for help,

    at heart, and the most attentive of those whose gaze I have drawn.

Sol 6.1