Las Dos Monedas

I am the most unfortunate in the world
And this vice is to blame
I lost the woman I had, now I also lose my son
He never knew what a father was
Because I was always drunk
He begged on the street for alms
So I could keep drinking

One night it rained until winter
The poor man arrived where I was
And he said to me, forgive me daddy
now they really didn't give me anything
I'm hungry and also very cold
Please don't say anything today

But I, blinded by so much anger
I hit him almost to death
And I told him to go to the street
I won't tolerate you anymore
You don't have a home or a father if you don't bring
to keep drinking

The poor man went out trembling with cold
and crying for what I said to him
while I, in the house, brutish
knowing that I cursed him so much

Alcohol and sleep overcame me
I woke up almost at dawn
When I opened the door of the house
I couldn't believe what I was seeing

There was my son lying there
He had died of hunger and cold
In his hand I found two coins
that he brought me to buy more wine
and I, drunk, didn't hear him knocking
and so the poor man died forgotten

Because of being drunk, I lost my son
and my wife whom I adored so much
I want to ask parents
not to harm their children
Maybe God sent me this punishment
for throwing myself into the path of vice.