Since life has, love! no true reality,
Why let its coil of cares a trouble be?
Yield thee to Fate, whatever of pain it bring :
The Pen will never unwrite its writ for thee!

Oh my heart, since life’s reality is illusion,
Why vex thyself with its sorrows and cares?
Commit thee to fate, contented with the hour,
For the pen, once passed, returns not back for thee!

O heart, since the world of a truth is illusion in vain,
Why, then, for its sake this longsome chagrin entertain?
Submit thee to Fate and suffer without complain,
For the Pen for thy sake on its Writ will not go back again.

The characters of all creatures are on the Tablet,
The Pen always worn with writing ‘Good’, ‘Bad’:
Our grieving and striving are in vain,
Before time began all that was necessary was given.

Nothing becomes different from what the Pen has once written,
and only a broken heart results from nursing grief;
though all your life through you swallow tears of blood
not one drop will be added to the existing score.

From of old the scheme of all that must be has existed.
The pen of destiny has written good and evil without ceasing.
He has appointed in predestination all that must come.
We distress and bestir ourselves, but all to no avail.

Before now there have been signs of what is to come,
The pen never rests from good or evil.
Destiny has given you all that is to be,
Our worries and our endeavours are in vain.

The tablet bears a secret impress writ;
Of good or bad, the pen recks not one whit;
Whatever under Fate seemed right was giy’n;
‘Tis vain to struggle and to fight with it.