Sol 6.1

  1. Your people approved what you intend and resolve to do,

    And esteemed what they saw of it and what they knew.

  2. The days have confirmed your fortune, and now complete

    Are your resolves, your days, and your aspirations.

  3. Take the road as you please, toward a goal

    For which the nations envy this nation.

  4. O guest of Aswan, seeking its climate, for whom

    Beyond Aswan lie a watchpost and a refuge,

  5. And a nation that receives, concerning its destinies,

    Whatever private counsel with him it wishes, and makes the most of it.

  6. You divided their Nile between the sons of the two lands,

    And it is indeed the guarantee of their unity.

  7. Their affections flow along the course of its waters,

    And they are indeed covenants for all time and bonds of honor.

  8. What ails those angered by what you are doing?

    They returned to it thirsty, after they had been denied it.

  9. And why have they lowered their voices after clamoring?

    Have the ages grown long upon them, or have they grown weary?

  10. Enough to satisfy you is what you reclaimed before them

    Of Egypt's rights, and what you preserved after them.

  11. You have denied them nothing; it is only that they

    Reject everything that others build.

  12. Was it a case of legal interdiction, or their means to an end?

    And did they want the money for the prince, or for themselves?

  13. They took up the verdict, praising the judges for it;

    And did you wish for anything but what they ruled?

  14. Whether it was acquittal or pardon

    That pleased them, both deserve respect.

  15. They said, 'Our acquittal is for both nations together.'

    Grant that they did wrong—are they the whole of both nations?

  16. There is no change in affairs if they prevail,

    And no alteration in any matter when they are defeated.

  17. Your noble soul anticipated their deliverance,

    And justice refuted what they supposed and what they claimed.

  18. And how could the law not accommodate an incident

    Of theirs, when pardon and generosity are among the practices you established?

  19. And the intercessor called upon on their behalf may be

    The one they claimed was a tyrant taking revenge.

  20. Had they been punished, they would have proclaimed themselves

    Victims, and spread the claim that they had been wronged,

  21. And that it was a war they had fought for their nation,

    In sacrifice—though their eyes had never witnessed a war.

  22. And if one day you hold them to account for what they did

    In aggression against you, you will have magnified their standing.

  23. They would have been more deserving of honor and congratulations,

    Had these charges not gone beyond suspicions.

  24. And would their souls urge them to repeat it

    Someday, when they scarcely believed they had escaped it unscathed?

  25. And from their past there still hangs over them

    A case in which you are both adversary and judge.

Sol 6.1