III MATERNAL ADVICE
Mitchell S. (Mitchell Starrett) Buck translation
MY mother bathes me in the darkness, she dresses me in the bright sunlight and arranges my hair in the light of lamps; but if we walk out in the moonlight she draws my girdle into a double knot.
She says to me: “Play with virgins, dance with little children; look not out of the window, shun the words of young men and turn from the counsel of widows.
“One evening, someone will take thee, as others are taken, over the threshold, amidst a great assemblage with sonorous drums and amorous flutes.
“That evening, when thou goest away, Bilito, thou wilt leave me three gourds of gall, one for the morning, one for midday and the third, the bitterest, the third for the days of festival.”