You said: “I will go hence to another land,

You said, “I will go to another place, to another shore.

I will betake me to another sea.

Another city can be found that’s better than this.

A better place than this may well be found.

All that I struggle for is doomed, condemned to failure;

All my endeavours are foredoomed to fail,

and my heart is like a corpse interred.

and as though dead my heart is sepulchred.

How long will my mind stagger under this misery?

How long shall this corrosion sap my brain?

Wherever I turn, wherever I look

On every side — whichever way I look —

I see the blackened ruins of my life,

dark ruins of my life confront me here

which for years on end I squandered and wrecked and ravaged”.

where I have spent and wrecked so many years.”

You will find no other place, no other shores.

You shall not find new places; other seas

This city will possess you, and you’ll wander the same

you shall not find. The place shall follow you.

streets. In these same neighborhoods you’ll grow old;

And you shall walk the same familiar streets,

in these same houses you’ll turn gray.

and you shall age in the same neighbourhood,

Always you’ll return to this city. Don’t even hope for another.

and whiten in these same houses. Ever this place

There’s no boat for you, there’s no other way out.

shall you arrive at. There is neither ship,

In the way you’ve destroyed your life here,

nor road, for you, to bring you otherwhere.

in this little corner, you’ve destroyed it everywhere else.

As here, in this small nook, you wrecked your life,

even so you spoilt it over all the earth.