Ecclesiastes 1
1 Verba Ecclesiastæ, filii David, regis Ierusalem.
[I am Solomon], the son of [King] David. [I rule] in Jerusalem [and people call me] ‘The (Preacher/Religious Teacher)’.
2 Vanitas vanitatum, dixit Ecclesiastes: vanitas vanitatum, et omnia vanitas.
I say that everything is mysterious; everything is hard for me to understand; it is difficult to understand why everything happens.
3 Quid habet amplius homo de universo labore suo, quo laborat sub sole?
(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]
4 Generatio præterit, et generatio advenit: terra autem in æternum stat.
[Each year] old people die and babies are born, but the earth never changes.
5 Oritur sol, et occidit, et ad locum suum revertitur: ibique renascens,
[Each morning] the sun rises, and [each evening] it sets, and [then] it hurries around to where it started from.
6 gyrat per Meridiem, et flectitur ad Aquilonem: lustrans universa in circuitu pergit spiritus, et in circulos suos revertitur.
The wind blows south, and then it [turns around to start blowing towards] the north. It goes around and around in circles.
7 Omnia flumina intrant in mare, et mare non redundat: ad locum, unde exeunt flumina, revertuntur ut iterum fluant.
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.
8 Cunctæ res difficiles: non potest eas homo explicare sermone. Non saturatur oculus visu, nec auris auditu impletur.
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.
9 Quid est quod fuit? ipsum quod futurum est. Quid est quod factum est? ipsum quod faciendum est.
[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].
10 Nihil sub sole novum, nec valet quisquam dicere: Ecce hoc recens est: iam enim præcessit in sæculis, quæ fuerunt ante nos.
Sometimes people say, “Look at this! This is something new [RHQ]!” But it has existed previously; it existed before we were born.
11 Non est priorum memoria: sed nec eorum quidem, quæ postea futura sunt, erit recordatio apud eos, qui futuri sunt in novissimo.
[People] do not remember the things [that happened] long ago, and in the future, people will not remember what we are doing now.
12 Ego Ecclesiastes fui rex Israel in Ierusalem,
I, the Religious Teacher, have been the king of Israel [for many years, ruling] in Jerusalem.
13 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.
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.
14 Vidi cuncta, quæ fiunt sub sole, et ecce universa vanitas, et afflictio spiritus.
It seems that nothing that happens on the earth really enables us to do anything useful. It is [like] [MET] chasing the wind.
15 Perversi difficile corriguntur, et stultorum infinitus est numerus.
[Many] things that are crooked cannot be caused to become straight; we cannot count things that do not exist.
16 Locutus sum in corde meo, dicens: Ecce magnus effectus sum, et præcessi omnes sapientia, qui fuerunt ante me in Ierusalem: et mens mea contemplata est multa sapienter, et didici.
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!”
17 Dedique cor meum ut scirem prudentiam, atque doctrinam, erroresque et stultitiam: et agnovi quod in his quoque esset labor, et afflictio spiritus,
[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.
18 eo quod in multa sapientia multa sit indignatio: et qui addit scientiam, addit et laborem.
The wiser I became, the more disappointed I became. The more things I knew about, the sadder I became.
