You are a man, tonight!
You are a man, my son!
By your bruised flesh
By your spilled blood
By your cold glance
By your immobile thigh.
And your mother remembers
Her night of love
Her torn entrails
Her silent groans
Her open loins
The envious looks of her wicked rivals
The greedy suction of your flower-shaped mouth
The miraculous amulet that
– With the help of Allah –
Has guided your steps to this happy day.
You are a man, tonight!
You are a man, my son!
By the cutting blade
By your tried sex
By your suppressed fear
By the land of the Ancestors
Gawolo!… sing of this new man.
Young girls with upright breasts
Cry out his name to the wind.
Selbe N’Diaye, make this little man dance.
You are a man, my son.
You are a man tonight
They are all here:
Those of your first moon
Those you call fathers.
Look, look at them well;
They alone are the guardians of the earth that drank your blood