En perseguirme, Mundo, que interesas?
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
She complains of her lot, suggesting her aversion to vice
and justifying
her resort to the Muses
In hounding me, world, what do you gain?
In what do I offend you, if I only seek
To put things of beauty in my understanding
And not my understanding in things of beauty?
I esteem neither treasures nor riches,
And thus find more contentment
Putting riches in my thoughts
Than in putting my thoughts in riches.
I prize not comeliness, which, vanquished,
Becomes the civil spoils of time.
Nor do perfidious riches agree with me,
Judging it better, in truth,
To consume the vanities of life
Than to consume my life in vanities.