Advising a friend, secure in his nobility, not to have his lineage researched, so no one will find out what is not known
Without fraud your grandfather's unknown past
is your estate, your forebears' pedigree;
don't scrutinize the registry of Time,
or part silence's veil of secrecy.
Just see what happened to that daring youth,
misguided spectacle of days gone by:
to prove that he descended from the Sun
proved, falling, he descended from the sky.
Don't tamper with your kin's long-buried bones;
you'll find more worms than crests residing there
when newly questioned witnesses tell all.
For with each bit of evidence you add,
you may find as the bonfires multiply
a proof akin to Phaëthon's famous fall.
Translated by Alix Ingber
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