We see death coming into our midst like black smoke,
a plague which cuts off the young, and has no mercy for the fair of face.
Woe is me of the shilling in the armpit:
it is seething, terrible, wherever it may come,
a white lump that gives pain and causes a loud cry,
a burden carried under the arms, a painful angry knob.
It is of the form of an apple, like the head of an onion,
a small boil that spares no one.
Great is its seething, like a burning cinder ...