Formerly, in the neighbouring countries

Their hamlets and towns could see each other;

Their cocks and dogs never ceased to answer

The crowing and barking of one another;

Their men might not die till they were old

And yet, all their life they would have

No communication together -- in those

Olden days perfect good order prevailed.

So it was not very long ago. But yet,

One day a foreign host got permission

To pass through their territories and,

By the way, they took those countries in hand

With all their cities and lands. And was it only

The lands that they stole insidiously?

Along with them they stole as well

The regulations of their governments

And all worthy men observed in them.

And so, though they got the name

Of being the thieves and robbers

Who acted, laughing in their beards,

Yet they themselves continued to live

As securely as they had seen fit: small states

Did not dare to find fault with them;

All the great did not dare to take them off;

For many generations they have possessed

Those countries as their cradled land.

Thus, do we not have a case in which

Not only did they steal the foreign lands,

But at the same time the regulations

Of those countries' sagely managed reigning,

Which thereby served to guard their persons,

Thieves and robbers by definition, as they were?

Let me try to set forth this point still further.

Have not there been among those

Vulgarly styled the worthiest and cleverest,

Such as have collected their valuables

And ruling methods for those foreign invaders?

And among those styled the most saint

And divined such as have guarded their values

For appropriation by the treacherous attackers?

Hence, we have the saying which states:

"When saints are born great robbers arise."