The stretch of my arm is straitened through the straitness of my hand's means; cares and grief assail me.
And my fortune, the blameworthy, has led me to the paths of that which honor deems base.
For I sold until there remained to me not a mat nor household goods to which I might turn.
So I indebted myself until I had burdened my neck by the carrying of a debt such that ruin had been lighter.
Then five days I wrapped my entrails upon hunger; but when the hunger scorched me,
I could see no goods except her outfit, in the selling of which I might go about and bestir myself.
So I went about with it; but my soul was loathing, and my eye tearful, and my heart saddened.
But when I made free with it, I passed not the bound of her consent, that her wrath should rise against me.
And if what angers her be her fancying that it was my fingers that should make gain by stringing;
Or that when I purposed to woo her I tinseled my speech that my need might prosper: