What Wisdom is and how she was born, I shall now
explain;
I shall hide no mysteries from you,
But shall follow her steps from the outset of her
origin,
Setting out what we know of her in full light,
Without departing from the truth.
Blighting envy is not the companion for me,
For envy has nothing in common with Wisdom.
In the greatest number of wise men lies the world’s
Salvation,
In a sagacious king the stability of a people.
Learn, therefore from my words; the gain will be
yours.
Solomon a man like other men (7:1-6)
I too am mortal like everyone else,
A descendant of the first man formed from the
earth.
I was modeled in flesh inside a mother’s womb,
Where, for ten months, in blood I acquired
substance-
The result of virile seed and pleasure, sleep’s
companion.
I too, when I was born, drew in the common air,
I fell on the same ground that bears us all,
And crying was the first sound I made, like
everyone else.
I was nurtured in swaddling clothes, with every
care.
No king has known any other beginning of existence;
For there is only one way into life, and one way
out of it.