Ecclesiastes 1
1 [I am Solomon], the son of [King] David. [I rule] in Jerusalem [and people call me] ‘The (Preacher/Religious Teacher)’.
Verba Ecclesiastæ, filii David, regis Jerusalem.
2 I say that everything is mysterious; everything is hard for me to understand; it is difficult to understand why everything happens.
Vanitas vanitatum, dixit Ecclesiastes; vanitas vanitatum, et omnia vanitas.
3 (What do people gain from all the work that they do here on the earth?/It seems that people gain no lasting benefit from all the work that they do here on the earth.) [RHQ]
Quid habet amplius homo de universo labore suo quo laborat sub sole?
4 [Each year] old people die and babies are born, but the earth never changes.
Generatio præterit, et generatio advenit; terra autem in æternum stat.
5 [Each morning] the sun rises, and [each evening] it sets, and [then] it hurries around to where it started from.
Oritur sol et occidit, et ad locum suum revertitur; ibique renascens,
6 The wind blows south, and then it [turns around to start blowing towards] the north. It goes around and around in circles.
gyrat per meridiem, et flectitur ad aquilonem. Lustrans universa in circuitu pergit spiritus, et in circulos suos revertitur.
7 All the streams flow into the sea, but the sea is never full. The water returns [to the sky], and [when it rains], the water returns to the rivers, and it flows again to the sea.
Omnia flumina intrant in mare, et mare non redundat; ad locum unde exeunt flumina revertuntur ut iterum fluant.
8 Everything is boring, [with the result that] we do not even want to talk about it. We [SYN] see things, but we always want to see more. We [SYN] hear things, but we always want to hear more.
Cunctæ res difficiles; non potest eas homo explicare sermone. Non saturatur oculus visu, nec auris auditu impletur.
9 [Everything continues to be the same as it has always been]; things that happen have happened previously, and they will happen again. What has been done before will be done again. There is nothing [really] new in this world [MTY].
Quid est quod fuit? Ipsum quod futurum est. Quid est quod factum est? Ipsum quod faciendum est.
10 Sometimes people say, “Look at this! This is something new [RHQ]!” But it has existed previously; it existed before we were born.
Nihil sub sole novum, nec valet quisquam dicere: Ecce hoc recens est: jam enim præcessit in sæculis quæ fuerunt ante nos.
11 [People] do not remember the things [that happened] long ago, and in the future, people will not remember what we are doing now.
Non est priorum memoria; sed nec eorum quidem quæ postea futura sunt erit recordatio apud eos qui futuri sunt in novissimo.
12 I, the Religious Teacher, have been the king of Israel [for many years, ruling] in Jerusalem.
Ego Ecclesiastes fui rex Israël in Jerusalem;
13 By being wise, I concentrated on understanding everything that was being done on the earth [MTY]. [But I found out that] God causes [all of] us to experience things that cause us to be unhappy/miserable.
et proposui in animo meo quærere et investigare sapienter de omnibus quæ fiunt sub sole. Hanc occupationem pessimam dedit Deus filiis hominum, ut occuparentur in ea.
14 It seems that nothing that happens on the earth really enables us to do anything useful. It is [like] [MET] chasing the wind.
Vidi cuncta quæ fiunt sub sole, et ecce universa vanitas et afflictio spiritus.
15 [Many] things that are crooked cannot be caused to become straight; we cannot count things that do not exist.
Perversi difficile corriguntur, et stultorum infinitus est numerus.
16 I said to myself, “[Hey], I am wiser than any of the kings that ruled in Jerusalem before I [became the king]. I am wiser and I know more than any of them!”
Locutus sum in corde meo, dicens: Ecce magnus effectus sum, et præcessi omnes sapientia qui fuerunt ante me in Jerusalem; et mens mea contemplata est multa sapienter, et didici.
17 [So] I determined to learn [more] about being wise and to learn about knowing about many things, and [also] to learn about [doing things that are] very foolish [DOU]. [But] I found out that trying to understand those things was also [useless, like] chasing the wind.
Dedique cor meum ut scirem prudentiam atque doctrinam, erroresque et stultitiam; et agnovi quod in his quoque esset labor et afflictio spiritus:
18 The wiser I became, the more disappointed I became. The more things I knew about, the sadder I became.
eo quod in multa sapientia multa sit indignatio; et qui addit scientiam, addit et laborem.
