VANITAS VANITATUM ET OMNIA VANITAS
IV

Unhappy who seeks in appearance
bliss and ephemeral praise,
and changes his mind with the change
of the versatile public conscience!

The present is your only providence;
yields to the blowing of the wind that throws him
to good without faith and evil without hope;
that in erring with the world is his science.

And happy the independent male
who, free from worldly bondage,
aspires, between pain and sorrow,

to the eternal truth, not to the present one,
knowing that the world and its truths
they are only vanity of vanities!