Berkeley Undergraduate Journal of Classics

Chapters nine and ten of Ecclesiastes in the original Hebrew stand as the most fascinating and enjoyable chapters in the opinion of the translators. We therefore wanted to express that pleasure by adhering to the original Hebrew, for the most part, as literally as possible. Further, we suspect that we have found a way to best express the poetic prose of the Hebrew: we have expressed our translation in relatively strict iambic pentameter. We have broken the meter where it felt fitting to the translation and where it seemed otherwise impossible to adhere. Our translation differs in a few key respects from King James and other translations; we therefore hope that the reader will examine their favorite translation and compare it with ours. Familiarity with the rest of Ecclesiastes is not necessary to enjoy our excerpt. We have left the Hebrew side-by-side with our translation for further scrutiny.