Sol 6.1

  1. The bold man kept his promises,

    and the oath-taker was true to his faith.

  2. The unarmed, inspired man shook the kingdoms in their might

    and in their glory.

  3. I witnessed you, and thus witnessed warriors,

    and what they undertook and what they sought.

  4. I followed you with my conscience at peace,

    and I know well what awaits you.

  5. Every place for which you work

    holds your celebration and festival.

  6. There was no uncertainty in my anger,

    nor any misgiving in my approval of you.

  7. Whim is not my guide concerning you,

    but rather my sound counsel.

  8. Indeed, the one I reproached concerning you

    is today more reproachful toward me concerning you.

  9. You endured Time with the patience of the noble,

    with a fresh burden upon you every day.

  10. How valuable the harsh ordeal would be, if

    the ordeal brought its lessons!

  11. Each of you is a conquering hero,

    whose weapons are his heart and mouth.

  12. Your stand—you and Time—

    is your unique, distinguished day.

  13. Your brothers fell behind you,

    but never differed about you for a moment.

  14. Whether they severed ties with you or maintained them,

    you are they, and they are you.

  15. You have your unity, a safeguard against Time,

    amid what it keeps secret and conceals.

  16. In the finest state you went,

    and with the best outcome you returned.

  17. You took taxes from the resident guests,

    and every income of theirs brings a gain.

  18. Do the wealthy among them withhold those taxes,

    while our destitute poor man pays?

  19. Was it a conference on their privileges,

    or a turbulent sea that you plunged into?

  20. Those heavy fetters deserved

    to be broken and shattered by you.

  21. They had been humiliation for you at their hands,

    but became security for them offered by you.

  22. Had you not agreed to their prices,

    they would neither have relinquished them nor yielded.

  23. It was no easy thing for them to give them up

    for nothing, when they were their oldest inheritance.

  24. They relinquished one part of their rights,

    and the more essential part came to them.

  25. Those claims of theirs are laid to rest,

    and that dispute of theirs is resolved.

  26. They received abundant generosity without measure,

    and you did not wish them to be deprived today.

  27. By your character, not by what you write,

    foreigners have sufficient protection.

  28. Their guarantees with you are nothing

    but generosity, redoubled by the benefactor.

  29. Part of your kindness to them in the land

    is to judge between them: so judge.

  30. When guests of the protected land show kindness

    to its people, they become one of them.

  31. A guest's arrogance toward his hosts

    is a painful wound to their souls.

  32. Every place where an intruder controls

    some of its keys to power is laid waste.

  33. Your valley is the world's paradise,

    and no criminal enters paradise.

  34. Whoever wrongs the one serving him Salsabil

    turns back; bitter colocynth is fitter for him.

  35. You wish the guest to rest,

    though the guest is surfeited with your provisions.

  36. Treatment of equal by equal, not

    the conflict of opposites, is what you wished.

  37. After the disorder of their relations,

    you established orderly relations.

  38. You forbade all that they permitted,

    and permitted all that they forbade.

  39. You fixed the time for reckoning,

    and they neither delayed nor advanced it.

  40. Will their beasts of prey refuse to yield

    to Egypt, when the lion has submitted?

  41. How often familiarity with you tamed one who defied you,

    as the speckled serpent grew accustomed to its tamer.

  42. The best covenants are what is on the dining table:

    what you fed them, and what they served.

  43. You made a feast of your own qualities,

    and they made a feast of theirs.

  44. Indeed, the benefits for both sides

    are shares in the good shared between them.

  45. It is for you, not others, in the land,

    to assess them and apportion them.

  46. No investor, then, may seize the land,

    nor may an employer take away a home.

  47. It is nothing but the stranger's life

    that you took into your care—and you did well.

  48. Whoever claims that you

    are wronging him is the greater wrongdoer.

  49. If they follow you, you are there for them,

    and they are safer under your protection.

  50. If yesterday was merciful to them,

    your day is more merciful still.

  51. If the guest denies the bounty of the noble,

    they are nobler still in severing ties with him.

  52. You entered the League among those seeking refuge,

    to secure yourselves and seek protection.

  53. Today it is the world's tribunal,

    and there your judgment is binding.

  54. All of you are representatives of the peoples,

    and modern Egypt is the one they addressed.

  55. They honored you, knowing

    that you are the best of those they honored.

  56. The willing among them kept pace with you,

    and the compelled among them humored you.

  57. If they fight one another around you,

    tomorrow you will be a balm for their wounds.

  58. Egypt's cause, despite its long course,

    ends in peace, just as it began.

  59. Her free men did not charge with iron,

    nor kindle fire in the fray.

  60. Nor did the earlier ones plunge in for her sake,

    nor did blood stain the later ones.

  61. Egypt is majestic through her people,

    and through justice her people are more majestic still.

Sol 6.1